Think Before You Act: A New Approach to Preventing Youth Violence and Dropout

• In Event: Policy Panel: Putting "What Works” into Action: Violence Reduction in the United States and Latin America

Abstract

Improving the long-term life outcomes of disadvantaged youths remains a top policy priority in the United States. Unfortunately, long-term progress in improving outcomes like high school graduation rates and reduction of violent crime has been limited. Jens Ludwig and Anuj Shah propose that the federal government aim to provide each teenager living in poverty in the United States with one year of behaviorally informed programming. Their team carried out several randomized controlled trials in Chicago that demonstrate that this approach, which is a version of what psychologists call cognitive behavioral therapy, can reduce arrests for violent crime by 30 to 50 percent, improve schooling outcomes, and generate benefits to society that may be up to thirty times the program costs. They suggest that the federal government scale up the program over five years, and that it combine this scale-up with rigorous evaluation to learn more about how best to implement (and, if needed, modify) the program at scale in different contexts across the country. If successful, this effort would improve the long-term well-being of our nation’s most disadvantaged young people, reduce crime, improve schooling attainment, reduce income inequality, and enhance the nation’s overall economic competitiveness.

Author

• Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago