J-Pal Bulletin: Practicing Choices, Preventing Crime

Cognitive behavioral therapy helped young men in cities in Liberia and the United States become more focused on the future, reducing criminal and violent behavior and increasing graduation rates when delivered in school.

Key Results:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) reduced criminal and violent behavior among young men in cities. In Chicago Public Schools in the United States, arrests per student decreased by 12 percent by the end of the program, with a 20 percent reduction in violent crime arrests. In Monrovia, Liberia, CBT deterred an average of 24 crimes per participant in the year following the program.

When delivered in schools, CBT also increased graduation rates. In the United States, students who received in-school CBT were 9 percent more likely to graduate high school on time, even though the reduction in crime among this group did not persist beyond the yearlong program.

CBT may have been effective because it changed participants’ decision-making processes. In the United States, students learned to slow down their decision-making.

In Liberia, participants exhibited increased patience and attention to their future. In Liberia, receiving cash in addition to CBT increased and extended these effects. By relieving the immediate financial need to return to crime, the grant may have provided men more time to independently practice and reinforce their changed behaviors.

These findings are based on the following studies:

Abt, Thomas, and Christopher Winship. 2016. “What Works in Reducing Community
Violence: A Meta-Review and Field Study for the Northern Triangle.“ Bethesda, MD:
Democracy International.

Hill, Patrick L., Brent W. Roberts, Jeffrey T. Grogger, Jonathan Guryan, and Karen
Sixkiller. “Decreasing Delinquency, Criminal Behavior, and Recidivism by Intervening
on Psychological Factors Other than Cognitive Ability: A Review of the Intervention
Literature.” NBER Working Paper #16698, January 2011.

Lipsey, Mark, Nana A. Landenberger, and Sandra J. Wilson. 2007. “Effects of
Cognitive-Behavioral Programs for Criminal Offenders: A Systematic Review.”
Campbell Systematic Reviews 3 (6).