Nudging Chicago Youth Away from Dangerous Defaults: Evaluating the ChiPlan App

Interventions to reduce crime often focus on increasing the likelihood and severity of punishment. Deterrence works if offenders carefully deliberate their actions, and so are considering the potential costs of their actions. But, we suggest that many offenses stem from more automatic behavior. Potential offenders often default into risky habitual activities, which might lead to crime and violence (even if that was not the intention). Here, we propose to evaluate an intervention that uses a plan-making app to introduce active choice (and behaviorally informed choice architecture) into everyday moments. This app lists safe activities for at-risk youth and uses behavioral levers to increase the likelihood that youths participate in these safe alternatives.