Preventing Recidivism and Improving Socio-Economic Reintegration: Evidence from a Prisoner Reentry Program in Côte d’Ivoire

Crimes are committed to a large number by ex-prisoners. Ex-prisoners are thus a straight-forward target population for crime prevention interventions. However, knowledge about which reintegration programs work and why is limited. While programs that provide job training and labor market opportunities can deter crime by increasing liquidity and changing time use, the evidence on their impact is limited and mixed. Additional barriers include low self-image, lack of social integration, negative peer effects, and attitude towards crime. In Côte d’Ivoire, the absence of official prisoner reintegration programs yields an incarceration cycle with broad consequences for crime rates, with recidivism rates averaging between 27-40%. This project aims to evaluate reintegration programs that combine economic with behavioral interventions, by randomly offering them to prisoners released during the bi-annual presidential grace of 3,000 prisoners. We aim to investigate the role of these psychological factors to better understand the mechanism behind existing reintegration programs, inform the design of alternative programs and provide insights into the production function of crime more generally.