Fear of crime and housing prices: Household reactions to sex offender registries

doi:10.1016/j.jue.2008.07.001

Journal of Urban Economics

Volume 64, Issue 3, November 2008, Pages 601-614

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2008.07.001 Get rights and content

Abstract

Megan's Law requires public dissemination of information from sex offender registries. Opponents to this controversial law have questioned whether households misinterpret or even use this information. One concern was that the information might simply induce a “fear of crime.” This study finds evidence for both use and misinterpretation of the publicly available information on sex offenders. Using a unique dataset that tracks sex offenders in Hillsborough County, Florida, the results indicate that after a sex offender moves into a neighborhood, nearby housing prices fall by 2.3% ($3500 on average). However, once a sex offender moves out of a neighborhood, housing prices appear to immediately rebound. Surprisingly, these price impacts do not appear to differ in areas near high risk offenders labeled as “predators.”

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^☆: I especially thank V. Kerry Smith for his invaluable input into this project. I am also grateful for the comments and suggestions provided by Stuart Rosenthal, two anonymous referees, Nick Kuminoff, Lars Lefgren, Raymond Palmquist, Chris Parmeter, Dan Phaneuf, Devin Pope, Walter Thurman and from many other colleagues. I gratefully acknowledge funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and offer this disclaimer: “Prepared under grant number H-21514SG from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of University Partnerships. Points of views or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.” A previous 2006 working paper version of this paper was circulated under the title “Do scarlet letters lead to scarlet homes? Household reactions to public information from sex offender registries.”

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Fear of crime and housing prices: Household reactions to sex offender registries☆

Abstract

Journal of Criminal Justice

Journal of Public Economics

Journal of Public Economics

Journal of Urban Economics

Do better schools matter? Parental valuation of elementary education

Quarterly Journal of Economics

Does air quality matter? Evidence from the housing market

Journal of Political Economy

Crime, urban flight, and the consequences for cities

Journal of Political Economy

Recidivism base rates, predictions of sex offender recidivism, and the “sexual predator” commitment laws

Behavioral Sciences and the Law

The costs of urban property crime

The Economic Journal

Fear of crime: A review of the literature

International Review of Victimology