Prison populations and young men's time discount rates

An interesting idea. The discussion is about the difficulty of making a real dent in prison populations as outlined by Erik Erik Eckholm in How to Cut the Prison Population (See for Yourself).

Tyler Cowen links to the article and among his commenters, there is this observation

Chris S August 14, 2015 at 8:14 am
Problem is most crimes are committed by young people, who are not good at valuing the future – they have way too high discount rates. Most people grow out of this by 25 or so.

But if you tag-for-life someone based on their 19-yo self, it is likely that information is of much less value when they are 30 and entering their most productive years.

It is an observation that is always sort of in the background in these conversations but one that warrants, as Chris does, foregrounding.

Most people want to exercise some mercy and generosity and would like to see a smaller prison population. The challenge which Eckholm points out (and he is only one among many, for example Megan McArdle), and contrary to popular perception, virtually everyone in jail or prison is in there for very good public safety reasons. There are vanishingly few inmates who could be released with high confidence that they would not imperil someone.

It has long been known that men, the vast majority of offenders, have a marked drop-off in proneness to violence sometime in their forties or fifties.

Still, I haven't seen anyone ever couch it in the terms Chris S uses. And he is right. It is not simply that young men are more prone to violence. It is, additionally, that they have such a high time discount rate. If you have low confidence in the distant future, then there is no point in saving today (putting off consumption), accumulating wealth or even moderating your behavior. Actions and consequences is only an equation that works if you believe there is a future in which the consequences occur.

Why I think Chris S's observation is important is that it points to an alternative approach. You can't do much about all the testosterone sloshing around in young men. You can do something about coaching, teaching, training them to have a lower time discount rate.