Predicting and Preventing Gun Violence: An Experimental Evaluation of READI Chicago*

Monica P Bhatt, Sara B Heller, Max Kapustin, Marianne Bertrand and Christopher Blattman

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024, vol. 139, issue 1, 1-56

Abstract: Gun violence is the most pressing public safety problem in U.S. cities. We report results from a randomized controlled trial (N = 2,456) of a community-researcher partnership called the Rapid Employment and Development Initiative (READI) Chicago. The program offered an 18-month job alongside cognitive behavioral therapy and other social support. Both algorithmic and human referral methods identified men with strikingly high scope for gun violence reduction: for every 100 people in the control group, there were 11 shooting and homicide victimizations during the 20-month outcome period. Fifty-five percent of the treatment group started programming, comparable to take-up rates in programs for people facing far lower mortality risk. After 20 months, there is no statistically significant change in an index combining three measures of serious violence, the study’s primary outcome. Yet there are signs that this program model has promise. One of the three measures, shooting and homicide arrests, declined 65% (p = .13 after multiple-testing adjustment). Because shootings are so costly, READI generated estimated social savings between 182,000 and 916,000 per participant (p = .03), implying a benefit-cost ratio between 4:1 and 18:1. Moreover, participants referred by outreach workers—a prespecified subgroup—saw enormous declines in arrests and victimizations for shootings and homicides (79% and 43%, respectively) which remain statistically significant even after multiple-testing adjustments. These declines are concentrated among outreach referrals with higher predicted risk, suggesting that human and algorithmic targeting may work better together.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjad031 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:139:y:2024:i:1:p:1-56.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics is currently edited by Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan Nunn, Andrei Shleifer and Stefanie Stantcheva

More articles in The Quarterly Journal of Economics from President and Fellows of Harvard College
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().