This paper investigates the effect of education on property crime at the district level in Indonesia over 2007–2012. Generalised method of moments estimation techniques are used to address endogeneity issues. The results show that more educated neighbourhoods experience less crime. Secondary and higher education appears to be particularly important. Effects are more pronounced for crimes reported by males than by females. One mechanism seems to be that there are fewer opportunities for engaging in criminal behaviour when one is in school. Extreme poverty appears to weaken the extent to which education reduces crime.