Social networks and schools can shape pathways into crime

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Daniel Cunha Byström at the Department of Economics at the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, will soon defend his doctoral thesis In the Path of Crime: Schools, Neighborhoods, and Firms. In the thesis, he studies crime as a social phenomenon and analyzes how people’s environments influence both pathways into crime and the broader consequences of crime and punishment.

“I study not only why certain individuals commit crimes, but also how crime is shaped by the environments people are part of — who they meet in school, who lives in their neighborhood, who is removed from the local environment through imprisonment, and how local institutions and firms respond to violence,” says Daniel Cunha Byström.

Older brothers can be a pathway to gang-related crime

One of the thesis’s key findings is that school peers with ties to older individuals involved in gang-related crime can serve as pathways into criminal networks, especially when those links run through older brothers.

“This is not just about general peer effects. Some students have more concrete connections to older and more established criminal environments,” he says.

Another central finding concerns the effects of longer prison sentences on people who remain in the same neighborhood. Crime decreases among individuals with previous criminal involvement, while in some cases it increases among younger men with no prior convictions.

“I find this particularly interesting because it shows that imprisonment is not only about locking up an offender. It can also change the social environment for the people who remain, sometimes in ways that reduce crime and sometimes in ways that create new risks,” says Daniel Cunha Byström.

He also shows that firms are affected by local violence. Following shootings in nearby areas, employers are more likely to mention criminal background checks in job advertisements, particularly in occupations where workers with prior criminal records are more common.

A broader perspective on criminal justice policy

According to Daniel Cunha Byström, the findings are important for how we think about criminal justice policy and crime prevention.

“Criminal justice policy is often evaluated using fairly narrow measures: whether the convicted person reoffends, whether the punishment has a deterrent effect, or whether incapacitation reduces crime while the person is incarcerated. These are important questions, but they do not capture the full picture. We need to understand not only the direct effects on those who commit crimes, but also how the policy affects the people and institutions around them,” he says.