Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Child and Adolescent Safety: The Role of Protective Legislation

(Family and Child Policy)

Targeted legislation remains an important policy tool in improving child and adolescent health and safety. Laws restricting or requiring certain behaviors can be effective in producing desirable outcomes; they may also place undue restrictions on behavior, produce unintended consequences, be difficult or costly to enforce, or be passed in response to outside influence. This panel includes four papers intended to investigate the benefits, costs and politics of existing or proposed child and adolescent protection laws across a variety of domains. The papers explore some of the most important issues and risks associated with protective legislation: effectiveness, noncompliance, moral hazard, mechanisms and regulatory capture. The first paper investigates the impact that keg registration laws have on binge drinking among adolescents. These laws target adults who may be inclined to purchase beer for adolescents, thereby protecting youth by increasing the costs of abetting underage drinking. The second and third papers both explore laws that require parents to restrain their children in child safety seats in cars. Despite inconclusive research on the effectiveness of the seats at preventing fatalities, laws mandating their use have expanded over time. The first of the two papers investigates the dynamics of this expansion, seeking to identify predictors of a state’s decision to expand its law. The second examines compliance with the laws, their effectiveness in preventing fatalities, and potential mechanisms. Finally, the last paper investigates the behavioral response to development of a new HPV vaccine for adolescents. Laws requiring use of this vaccine have been passed in some states and proposed in others. However, critics worry that increasing protection against sexually transmitted infections will cause adolescents to engage in more risky sex. This paper searches for the presence of moral hazard in response to the new vaccine and provides evidence to inform the discussion of the proposed protective legislation. Overall the four papers address vital issues in the area of child and youth protection.