Hey cburst, I would agree with you that fungibility is a truly slippery slope, but I don’t think there aren’t handholds along the way. The case of abortions paid for by government-supplemented health care and the case of junk food bought with food stamps are both cases of the fungibility of the medium of money. I think you can reasonably limit your discussion to the fungibility of money without getting into a meaningless discussion about the cuasal interrelatedness of everything in your light cone.

p.s. If you want to get line breaks in your comment, I’ve found it helps to hit “delete” before you start typing.

Well David, I think we’ve reached an understanding, if not total agreement.

I would agree with you that having a direct comparison between overall recidivism pre-YC and post-YC would give us a better picture of whether it works. But I don’t think that means we have to remain agnostic about the likely overall effect on recidivism. If you look at the distribution of offenses of kids entering the program, it runs the gamut. But the difference in reoffending between YC participants and custodial punishments is big: 38% vs. 71%. Given that stark difference, the fact that offenders with all types of crimes were referred to the YC program, and the fact that 38% is low by global standars, I’m comfortable calling myself impressed.

That said, I’m not saying that’s an airtight case. Kids in the YC program had to agree to participate. That may introduce a certain “cherry-picking” effect. But at the end of the day, to get a true recidivism rate, you’d need to follow every participant through to their dying day to see if they ever reoffend, right? And we’re not going to wait for that. We shouldn’t hold out for incontrovertably conclusive data before moving on some apparent improvements.

Perhaps I should have said “encouraging” instead of “remarkable”
(though, literally speaking, you and I have both spent some time remarking about them so far, so they are that).

At the end of the day, though, this conversation itself has been a net good and improved the orignal post, so thanks for that and cheers!

Hey David, I appreciate the skepticism and I think you raise fair points. A few responses:

1) Page 15 of the report gives the distribution of offenses that kids who enter the youth conference system are charged with. They don’t compare it to the distribution of total offenses but they describe it as “a wide range” in terms of seriousness and, just looking at the chart, it strikes me as pretty similar to what the total distribution probably looks like. If that’s the case, the program would reduce recidivism overall.

2) This is a working program, not a scientific study. Even if you compared the total recidivism rates in earlier years to the recidivism rate during the course of the YC trial, that still wouldn’t be proof the program reduces reoffending, strictly speaking. A sufficiently motivated skeptic could find any number of factors that weren’t held constant across the two time periods (did the economic climate change? did the schools change?). Holding out for airtight scientific proof might be a very, very long wait.

3) You acknowledge this yourself but it’s important: There are a number of reasons, aside from recidivism rate, that this program is likely to be better. The report indicates it’s less expensive than prison, and victims report preferring it. There are also any number of other positive “externalities.” It may contribute to a less vindictive atmosphere in society overall and almost certainly reduces some of the human suffering associated with prison terms for the victims (and that suffering is a cost of criminal justice). Of course these latter reasons involve emotions and attitudes, and that makes them hard to quantify (see point 2).

4) Given the fact that people like this program, and that it is, I would argue, more compassionate, and that, at the very least, it can’t be proven that it’s making things worse: isn’t it a step forward?

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Just stumbled across this archive post. It’s is the funniest thing I’ve seen in months.

“Nuts and Milk”???

“Twin Eagle: Revenge Joe’s Brother”???

You’re not even exacting revenge for Joe? Just his anonymous brother? How can I get excited about that?

Too funny.

In the year 2000, that second ‘u’ will be superfluos.

So, switching topics: Ben, what’s the deal with Brazil and their new voluntary carbon reduction offer? Is this a bluff to make everyone else look bad and to get the U.S. to put something serious on the table? Or is it a real sacrifice they’re prepared to make?

Hey, yeah, the line breaks are on the list of things our tech team is working on. Soon, hopefully. Bear with us til then!

Ok, so one element of the argument against the tax credit is that it doesn’t do much to get people to buy homes. Glaeser claims the tax credit doesn’t make the difference for 4 out of 5 first-time homebuyers. But we have lots of anecdotal evidence from the comments that it does. I’m sure it does make the difference for some people. What percentage, exactly, is another question.

But the second element of the argument is that we just shouldn’t be incentivizing the buying lots of single-family homes. And that’s a principal difference with Cash for Clunkers. Buying more fuel-efficient cars is good; buying more energy-inefficient, single-family homes may not be.

But while we’re at it, I think it’s very hard to guage the net effect of the Cash for Clunkers program. So I’ll reserve judgment on that myself for now.

Thanks for all the productive comments. I’m enjoying the convo.

Thanks for catching that, Geektronica. I added the IRS.gov page on the Homebuyer Tax Credit instead.

Steven Pearlstein says that “Even its most prominent supporters acknowledge that of the first-timers who have already claimed the credit, only one in five wouldn’t have bought a home without it.” The people who think the program is a waste wouldn’t deny that, for some people (like nicksergeant), the $8,000 tax credit is what seals the deal. But they say those people are outnumbered by people (like Ezra Klein) who would have bought a home whether or not there was the tax credit.

I don’t have good numbers to back up the Pearlstein quote above, but that’s the argument at least.