Direct and Indirect Effects of READI Chicago on Gun Violence
The specific aims of the proposed project are: 1. Support the generation of a manuscript reporting the initial 20-month results of the READI RCT, including data from the Chicago Police Department on shooting and homicide victimization and arrests, other serious violent offending, and other measures of criminal activity. 2. Generate initial results for how READI’s impact affects serious violence among the social network of participants, measuring social ties with administrative data on co-arrests, covictimization, prior school ties, co-residence, and geographic proximity.
Abstract
Chicago’s Rapid Employment and Development Initiative (READI) is a large-scale randomized controlled trial (n=2,456) of an intervention designed to reduce serious violence among men at the highest risk of shooting involvement. READI provides supported employment, cognitive behavioral therapy, and other support services for at least 18 months. In the main study, we measure initial 20-month program impacts with Chicago Police Department arrest and victimization records. In a related study, we will analyze how changes in gun violence spread through participants’ social networks. We measure social networks in city-wide administrative data that capture different kinds of social ties among over 2 million people: co-arrest, co-victimization, shared classrooms, shared households, and shared neighborhoods. The random variation in whether existing peers were offered READI allows us to estimate how the program affects individual untreated peers, as well as the resulting impact on the net amount of crime across participants’ broader social network. This project aligns with the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention’s focus areas by contributing new, rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of a program designed to reduce gun violence involvement among those at extremely elevated risk of shooting or being shot. The spillover analysis also provides experimental evidence on how gun violence spreads through social networks and the implications for how to best target prevention programs. Due to data provider requirements, every hour the GSRA spends working with data must be funded; the project manager position is entirely grant-funded. We are currently preparing to apply to the National Science Foundation and identifying other potential funding opportunities. Receipt of IFIP funding will allow us to continue our current work and prove the project is viable to other prospective funders.