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Thanks for the post, and for working on such an important problem! This sounds very exciting, and I’m very much looking forward to future reports of ACTRA.

I have to admit though I’m a bit baffled by the apparent evidence for the effectiveness of such interventions:

Evidence: Over 50 high-quality randomized studies show CBT reduces criminal relapse by 25-50%, theft by 54%, and homicide arrests by 65%. One CBT program alone prevented ~300 crimes per participant over a decade at ~$2 per crime averted. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and leading research organizations (J-PAL and IPA) all endorse CBT as highly promising, with IPA calling it a “best bet.”

These numbers sounds “too good to be true” on a level I can barely put into words. I haven’t looked into the linked studies in detail, and I think very highly of Charity Entrepreneurship and their thorough research, so I’m sure there is indeed something to it. Yet, I wonder, is there a good understanding as to why CBT apparently works so well in this case? I generally do well with the heuristics of “most effect sizes are small” and “behavior change is very difficult (even in yourself, let alone in others)”. Of course a heuristic is just that, a heuristic, and there are always cases where they don’t hold. What is your current understanding why this area in particular would be so different, and such large positive effect sizes are comparably ~easily achievable?

To expand a bit, I would assume that many different factors contribute to a person leading a life of crime. One part of that surely is some degree of impulsiveness, mental health, dealing with negative emotions—the kinds of properties that CBT can plausibly improve^[1] - but I would assume that there are many other, potentially even stronger effects (social circle in particular, career perspective and unemployment, substance abuse, being in debt, …) that should not be affected that much, if at all, by a CBT intervention. Hence, CBT alone reducing crime rates by 50% in some studies just seems very unexpected to me.

Hope I don’t sound too critical. But would be very interested in your views on this. :)

1. ^

   And “improve” usually means some marginal improvement—these issues are usually not fully solved by CBT.

Thanks for this write-up, I’m hoping to see where ACTRA heads in the coming year! I wish you the best of luck. Have you received any additional funding so far?