short thread:

"In a randomized controlled trial among 1634 disadvantaged high school youth in Chicago, assignment to a summer jobs program decreases violence by 43% over 16 months (3.95 fewer violent-crime arrests per 100 youth).

"Local community organizations place youth in nonprofit and government jobs (for example, summer camp counselors, workers in a community garden...Youth are assigned job mentors—adults who help them learn to be successful employees and to navigate barriers to employment"

"Half the treatment group also receives
social-emotional learning (SEL) based on cognitive
behavioral therapy principles, aimed at teaching
youth to understand and manage the aspects of
their thoughts, emotions, and behavior that might
interfere with employment"

- from Sara Heller's "Summer jobs reduce violence among
disadvantaged youth" in @ScienceMagazine

the difference between the jobs only group and jobs+social emotional learning/CBT group weren't statistically significant, having the job seemed to be key.

that doesn't mean that the income or the position is the only thing that mattered: the jobs were with local community organizations which meant working closely with adults who were invested in them and their neighborhoods

the politics of this study aren't mine, which makes the results more interesting. the social emotional learning intervention was to "manage the aspects of their thoughts, emotions, and behavior that might interfere with employment"

not how I'd think of the emotional issues

but, again, whatever was going on here didn't prevent the result: giving kids a job that connected them with community organizations (with or without capitalist emotional training) resulted in lower arrest rates

plenty of interp ?s to ask, but there are plenty of other studies

also plenty of ethical questions to ask about RCTs in general, especially in marginalized communities, though this particular study design doesn't seem much different from business as usual - Black youth unemployment rates, like Black unemployment generally, are structurally high

here's a link to the study that hopefully works

https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/attachments/033f3a2cfa1f71cc5ea2e09cb2714da8068dc1ea/store/7ff57c6b05ffa643108ae0e42ca8b7bacdb4d2b6121e8e4573c8ad487dc3/Summer%2BJobs%2BReduce%2BViolence%2BAmong%2BDisadvantaged%2BYouth%2B-%2BScience.pdf