Diagnosis can increase risk of criminal conviction, study concludes. Everything changes in the second year after the patient finds out they have cancer, for multiple reasons.
A cancer diagnosis profoundly changes a person’s life, on several levels. But a new study suggests the shock could extend to an unexpected level: crime.
The Danish authors of the investigation, in American Economic Journal: Applied Economicsthey call it “Breaking Bad effect”.
In the series (currently available on Netflix), the “atinadinho” and “atadinho” chemistry professor Walter White (Bryan Cranston) enters, to his and everyone’s surprise, into a path of criminality after receiving a cancer diagnosis with a short life expectancy.
The investigation based on administrative data from Denmark identified a pattern that the authors describe as similar to the behavior of the reinvented Walter White, albeit with less extreme crimes — mainly infractions such as shoplifting or drug possession.
The researchers cross-referenced data from several Danish national registers, creating a large database with information on demographics, employment, education, income, wealth, health and criminal records. The analysis focused on 368,317 people diagnosed with cancer between 1980 and 2018.
By linking health data with criminal records, the authors compared the behavior of these patients with that of a control group without a cancer diagnosis. The result shows that, in the first year after diagnosis, there is no increase in crime (on the contrary: the conviction rate decreases). This is due, researchers say, to the demanding and tiring treatments of the first year post-diagnosis.
Everything changes from the second year of diagnosiswhen the probability of conviction begins to rise above the pre-diagnosis level and becomes statistically significant. The effect increases over five years and then stabilizes at high levels for another five years, according to study data cited by .
In total, the study concludes that cancer patients have a 14% higher probability of being convicted of a crime after diagnosis.
In addition to identifying this correlation, the authors sought, of course, to understand the mechanisms that can explain it.
One of the hypotheses is the economic impact of the disease. Although all participants have access to health insurance — Denmark covers expenses for everyone — cancer still has important extra costs.
A probability of employment drops 1.5 percentage points in the year of diagnosis, and even those who remain employed tend to work fewer hours and have lower income. The study concludes that individuals in whom the relationship between cancer and crime is stronger are also those who register greater drops in income total.
The research also found a relevant increase in non-economic crimesincluding crimes violentwhich suggests that factors other than financial difficulties may be involved.
The researchers also analyzed the perception of life expectancy. The reasoning is that the The prospect of an earlier death can reduce the deterrent weight of future consequenceslike a prison sentence. The effect was strongest among patients whose five-year survival probability fell most steeply at the time of diagnosis.
Finally, the study points to a possible role of social policies. Taking advantage of differences created by the 2007 Danish municipal reform, the authors found that the rise in crime after cancer was more pronounced in areas where social support had been reduced.
