Before 2010, about one-fourth of people released from prison in Uruguay committed crimes on their very first day of freedom. But this first-day crime rate was reduced to zero by an increase in the stipend for released prisoners from 30 to 100 Uruguayan pesos ($1.12-3.73), easing freed inmates’ first-day cash crunch, say Ignacio Munyo of the University of Montevideo in Uruguay and Martín A. Rossi of the University of San Andrés in Argentina.

(Source: Journal of Public Economics)

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, July 6th, 2015

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