Friday 07 November 2025 13:00 - 14:00

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About this event

This paper examines how gang-related criminal behavior spreads through extended family and peer networks, using newly linked Swedish administrative data covering over 18,000 individuals with confirmed gang affiliation. Within-family correlations reveal intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior where parental criminal history accounts for only half of a broader latent "crime-family" effect, with older siblings explaining most of the remaining influence. Building on this, I study what I term "gateway peers" - students whose older siblings have committed gang-related crimes - and estimate peer effects using quasi-random variation in cohort-to-cohort composition. Exposure in grade 7 significantly increases both general and gang-related offending by early adulthood, with effects concentrated within schools, not neighborhoods, and strongest when gateway peers share the student's background. Excluding areas where gangs are not present, exposure also significantly increases the probability of being confirmed as gang-affiliated after compulsory school. I provide additional evidence of a recruitment mechanism beyond general peer influence: spillovers disappear when gateway siblings are absent during the expected recruitment window, and exposed students are more likely to co-offend with gateway peers' relatives and confirmed gang members. Exposure further reduces academic performance and increases diagnoses of mood disorders among adolescents. The findings highlight the role of sibling-linked peer networks in shaping criminal trajectories and suggest that preventative interventions targeting school environments may help disrupt recruitment into organized crime.

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Directions

European Seminars on the Economics of Crime are part of the CEP's Community Wellbeing programme and Policing and Crime Research Group.