Lottery Windfalls Don’t Cut Crime

A large study using lottery winners as a quasi‑random income shock finds no consistent change in criminal behavior after a cash windfall. The result implies the correlation between poverty and crime may be driven by underlying traits rather than income itself. It cautions that transfers alone are unlikely to reduce offending. — If poverty isn’t a proximal causal lever on crime, policy should shift from income boosts toward interventions that target offender selection, impulse control, and repeat‑offending dynamics.