Crime and sport participation: Evidence from Italian regions over the period 1997–2003

What is the impact of sport participation on society? This paper is tackling this point by studying whether or not there is a relationship between sport participation and crime. A panel dataset have been constructed for the twenty Italian regions over the period 1997–2003. Results show that: (i) there is a robust negative association between sport participation and property crime; (ii) there is a robust negative association between sport participation and juvenile crime; (iii) there is a positive association between sport participation and violent crime, but it is only weakly significant. Interestingly, there is a complementary effect between education and sport participation on crime.

Research highlights▶ There is a robust negative association between sport participation and property crime. ▶ There is a robust negative association between sport participation and juvenile crime. ▶ There is a positive association between sport participation and violent crime. However, it is only weakly significant at 10%.