School absences and crime: Long-term effects and the moderating role of community conditions

• In Event: Advancing criminological research through administrative data: Lessons from the ADR UK Data First programme (Panel 2)

Abstract

This study explores the long-term associations between early school absenteeism and crime across different stages of life, with particular emphasis on how these relationships are moderated by key socio-demographic factors, including ethnicity, sex, and economic background. This research addresses two key questions: (1) What are the long-term effects of school absenteeism on crime at different life stages? and (2) Do social-demographic and community-level characteristics moderate the relationship between absenteeism and crime? To answer these questions, this study uses the Ministry of Justice (MoJ)–Department for Education (DfE) linked dataset, which provides a large-scale, longitudinal dataset that enables analysis of the relationship between school absences and crime. Absenteeism measures are drawn from the National Pupil Database, while crime involvement indicators are obtained from the Police National Computer. A combination of quantitative research methods is employed. Descriptive and exploratory analyses identify trends in absenteeism and subsequent crime across demographic groups, shedding light on variations by ethnicity, sex, and economic background. Multivariate regression models assess the extent to which school absenteeism predicts criminal involvement at various life stages while controlling for socio-demographic factors. Additionally, survival analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model examines the timing of first criminal involvement following absenteeism, accounting for key confounders such as previous offending and community context. Structural equation modelling (SEM), including mediated growth models, is applied to trace how changes in absenteeism over time influence criminal behaviour, highlighting both direct and indirect pathways and the moderating effects of social background. By integrating these methods, this study provides a comprehensive assessment of how early educational absenteeism influences criminal trajectories and under what conditions these risks are heightened or mitigated. The findings offer valuable policy insights for educators, criminal justice practitioners, and policymakers aiming to prevent youth crime through early interventions targeting school absenteeism.

Authors

• David Buil-Gil, The University of Manchester

• Ken Pease, University College London