Abstract. Gun violence is the most pressing public safety problem in American cities. We report results from a randomized controlled trial (N = 2,456) of a comm
Whaaaaat?!? Effective therapy works??? Wtf I call bullshit no way. Just beat and arrest them like the good ol days and let the system continue to work like it has been.
But for real, how tf has it taken this long to treat humans as humans. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I know I know, money and power, but can we act and think fucking civilized already? Do the powers that be really need a study to find out that humanizing people actually helps?
It’s frustrating that scientists start with the assertion that gun crime and not capitalism is the most pressing public safety concern, but at least they’re trying anti-poverty measures to reduce gun crime instead of more policing. It doesn’t take a PhD to realize poverty is the root cause of not just gun crime, but most social problems.
But this isn’t new. The last time academics tried something similar, the the violence interrupters, the Fraternal Order of Police lobbied against it to have it shut down. It was showing significant results, saving black lives and reducing gun violence. But the police saw it as a threat (and it was - anything that reduces crime is a threat to the institution of police), and they killed it.
No surprise there. Most social programs are very productive with good returns.
It’s just much more efficient to teach and reward than let it get bad and punish. Jails, for example, are super expensive. An inmate not only produces nothing, but also costs 10s of thousands of dollars. Over here, that averaged £50k a year per inmate when the average income was close to half that.
Which is why I laugh at the recent migrant boat bs where the government is spending a similar amount of money instead of putting people through skillup programs and such.