The Next Big Idea Daily Can a Text Message Reduce Crime?
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Mar 18, 2026 Jennifer Doleac, an economist and criminal justice policy leader, shares research on low-cost interventions like court text reminders and testing reforms. Neil Gross, sociologist and former police officer, tells how three departments shifted cop culture toward respectful, community-focused policing. They discuss deterrence, supervision as intervention, and why learning police realities matters.
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Economists Offer Practical Tools For Crime Policy
- Economists bring incentive design, causal methods, and cost-benefit trade-offs to crime policy.
- Jennifer Doleac explains economists use experiments and quantification to target scarce resources for bigger public-safety gains.
Use Simple Nudges To Reduce Court No-Shows
- Small, targeted changes to incentives can sharply reduce harms without massive structural reform.
- New York City text reminders cut failures-to-appear by 13% by clarifying court dates and consequences at almost no cost.
Certainty Of Detection Beats Harsh Sentences
- Raising the probability of being caught deters crime far more than harsher sentences.
- Doleac cites DNA database expansion reducing recidivism over 40% by increasing perceived certainty of detection.
