Not surprisingly, giving disadvantaged youth summer jobs reduces violent crime (there’s no difference for property and drug crimes).
Youth employment programs have been studied in the past with mixed results. Most of the time, the program costs seem to outweigh the societal benefit. In this case, the program cost an estimated $3,000 per student ($1,400 for wages and $1,600 for administrative costs) while yielding around $1,700 in benefits from reduced crime. So the benefits did barely outweigh the administrative costs.
However, Heller insists that preventative programs like these are still more cost-effective than remediative punishment like prison.
“The results echo a common conclusion in education and health research: that public programs might do more with less by shifting from remediation to prevention. The findings make clear that such programs need not be hugely costly to improve outcomes for disadvantaged youth; well-targeted, low-cost employment policies can make a substantial difference, even for a problem as destructive and complex as youth violence.”
