Imagine getting the chance to fix your biggest mistake. All you need is ten minutes of your life back.
Jens Ludwig says that 80% of the people incarcerated for gun violence would not be in prison if they had that chance.
Ludwig is the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. His research shows that most deadly shootings in the U.S. aren’t premeditated acts of murder — instead, they’re due to conflicts escalating in the moment.
As part of the Ethics of Now, an event series from the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Ludwig visited Duke University and Durham, North Carolina to talk about how he analyzes gun violence through the lens of behavioral economics, a branch of economics that seeks to better understand human decision-making. He spoke to students at Duke Law School and the Department of Economics before joining Ethics of Now host, history professor Adriane Lentz-Smith, for a public event at the Durham County Main Library on the evening of January 23.
In his book, “Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence,” Ludwig writes about two Chicago neighborhoods, Greater Grand Crossing and South Shore. These communities are right next to each other. They are indistinguishable in terms of demographics and economic conditions. Yet, despite their proximity, Greater Grand Crossing has twice as many shootings as South Shore. Why?
Located by Lake Michigan, South Shore has more commercial development, which means there’s more foot traffic and what Ludwig calls “eyes on the street.” Since most shootings are the result of split-second decisions in moments of high stress, Ludwig says, bystanders have a deescalating effect.
Additionally, according to research from the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago, which Ludwig directs, neighborhoods plagued by gun violence keep losing residents, because they leave to find safer places to live. So the cycle of violence deepens and the problem only gets worse.
Ludwig discussed his research with a group of Duke undergraduates in the Social Sciences building — the same building where he earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Duke Graduate School over 30 years ago.
Ludwig said that while the gun violence problem is much bigger and more complex than national policy would have you assume, there are much less costly solutions than what is proposed.
Since 90% of shooters and 80% of victims have prior records, Ludwig said, training detention guards to teach behavioral intervention methods is an effective way to curb violent crimes. Empowering high-risk people to make smarter decisions instead of escalating conflict to the point of no return is an inexpensive but practical solution.
“As we learn more about how the world works, it turns out that you can really reduce violence without having to incarcerate lots of people,” Ludwig said.
When a student asked whether these interventions would have similar outcomes in different regions, Ludwig said yes. “Policy-makers assume absolutely nothing generalizes,” he said, but “the things that work are much less context-specific than policy-makers assume.”
Ludwig later visited the Durham County Main Library to speak to the Durham community about gun violence. He reiterated his point about the importance of behavioral interventions while diving deeper into the psychological mechanisms of these life-altering decisions.
When the brain is under stress, like the stress of intense interpersonal conflict, Ludwig says that deliberate “System 2” thinking turns off and automatic “System 1” thinking takes over.
“System 1 is designed to be very fast…choosing between two options: ‘fine’ and the ‘end of the world,’” Ludwig explained. These instant decisions can lead to the heat-of-the-moment violence, especially in vulnerable communities.
“There is a second group of people that is often engaging in high-stakes situations where misconstrual and catastrophizing also turns out to be important, which is law enforcement,” Ludwig said.
He described how a University of Chicago research colleague delivered behavioral training to a thousand Chicago police officers, “then looked at their administrative activity data six months later.” In comparison with a control group that didn’t receive the training, there were reductions in their “use of force, low public safety value arrests, and black-white disparities in low public safety value arrests as well.”
In the Q&A session, Durham County Commissioner Michelle Burton asked for practical steps that she and her fellow policymakers in Durham could take to fight gun violence. Ludwig mentioned training detention guards to provide behavioral intervention education, but also focusing on city planning. Creating vibrant neighborhoods entices people to go for a walk or drive around the block, which decreases the likelihood of violent crime by 30%.
Other questioners led Ludwig to emphasize the importance of a good social safety net, education, and a variety of policies that can target different aspects of the gun violence problem.
