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Thursday, June 2nd, 2022

A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in.

Author:     Sigal Samuel
Source:     Vox
Publication Date:     May 31, 2022 | 8:20am EDT
 Link: A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in.
Stephan:   I have been telling my readers for over two decades that policies that foster wellbeing, are always -- I have never found an exception anywhere in the world -- more effective, more efficient, more productive, nicer for everyone to live under, and much, much cheaper. (See SR archive and look for "Social Values, Social Outcomes") Here is yet another proof of this. When you make policy on the basis of facts, not ideology, or some kind of personal, political, or corporate interest this is glaringly obvious. Therefore, the question is: why isn't this being done, and what are the other priorities? To read the actual research study upon which this report is based: Cognitive behavior therapy reduces crime and violence over 10 years: Experimental evidence
A man looks out over Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia in West Africa. 
 John Wessels/AFP/ Getty

What if someone told you that you could dramatically reduce the crime rate without resorting to coercive policing or incarceration? In fact, what if they said you could avert a serious crime — a robbery, say, or maybe even a murder — just by shelling out $1.50?

That’s such an incredibly good deal that it sounds too good to be true. But it’s been borne out by the research of Chris Blattman, Margaret Sheridan, Julian Jamison, and Sebastian Chaskel. Their new study provides experimental evidence that offering at-risk men a few weeks of behavioral therapy plus a bit of cash reduces the future risk of crime and violence, even 10 years after the intervention.

Blattman, an economist at the University of Chicago, never intended to conduct this study. But in 2009, he was hanging out with an acquaintance in Liberia named Johnson Borh, who showed him around the capital city of Monrovia. Since Blattman studies crime and violence, Borh took him […]

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