By Amy Finkelstein, Sarah Miller, and Katherine Baicker

  Those involved with the criminal justice system have disproportionately high rates of mental illness and substance-use disorders, prompting speculation that health insurance, by improving treatment of these conditions, could reduce crime. Using the 2008 Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, which randomly made some low-income adults eligible to apply for Medicaid, we find no statistically significant impact of Medicaid coverage on criminal charges or convictions. These null effects persist for high-risk subgroups, such as those with prior criminal cases and convictions or mental health conditions. In the full sample, our confidence intervals can rule out most quasi-experimental estimates of Medicaid’s crime-reducing impact.  

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2024-158

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2024. 49p.