Having more education than your parents makes it less likelythat you will commit a crime as an adult

Though the relationship between socioeconomic status and crime has long been of interest to criminologists, few studies have examined the importance of social mobility. Raymond Swisher and Christopher Dennison used data from a national longitudinal study to analyze the association between intergenerational educational mobility and crime. They find upward educational mobility is associated with a lower likelihood of committing a crime, and downward mobility is linked to a greater likelihood. They argue that these findings are important given increasing concerns about inequality, the growing importance of a college degree, and its consequences for family life, wellbeing, and criminal behavior.