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People Really Are More Likely to Commit Crimes After a Cancer Diagnosis

Just like Breaking Bad.

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You can draw a straight line between the cancer diagnosis and Walter White becoming the American Southwest’s preeminent meth kingpin. It’s a logical leap to make since cancer treatment is wildly expensive, even after the parts of it covered by insurance, and all because the United States still, somehow, does not have a robust public healthcare system. You might argue that someone turning to a life of crime because they got cancer, while somewhat logical, probably isn’t very common.

New research suggests it’s much more common than you think, and in Denmark of all places, which has a pretty beefy universal healthcare system.

Researchers publishing in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics analyzed Danish administrative data spanning nearly four decades. They examined 368,317 people diagnosed with cancer between 1980 and 2018, linking health records with detailed information on employment, income, and criminal history. Then they compared those patients to similar individuals without a diagnosis.

The first year after diagnosis, crime drops. That makes sense. Cancer treatment is physically punishing. Chemotherapy and radiation don’t leave much room for late-night breaking and enterings and whatnot.

Two Years After a Cancer Diagnosis, the Crime Starts

But two years in, patients become statistically more likely to be convicted of a crime than they were before diagnosis. Over time, the effect grows and then stabilizes. Overall, cancer patients are 14 percent more likely to be convicted after diagnosis. These typically aren’t Walter White-style criminal masterminds. The spike can be attributed to small-time crimes like shoplifting and drug possession, along with several other nonviolent violations. The study also found a small spike in violent offenses, suggesting that the post-cancer fascination with committing crimes extends beyond economic reasons.

As I said, Denmark has a universal healthcare system, which severely cut back on the kinds of massive healthcare bills that usually ruin people’s lives in the United States. Yet, the researchers suggest that economics still plays a big role in driving cancer patients toward crime. They may not have the hefty bills to pay, but all of their other bills and various financial responsibilities are still there, all of which can be hard to keep up with when the amount you can work drops and your income plummets along with it. It should be of no surprise that patients who showed the steepest income declines had the strongest links between cancer and crime.

Turns Out People Care Less About the Law When They Think They’re Going to Die. Wild!

There’s also the psychological aspect to consider. Patients with lower five-year survival possibilities were more likely to commit crimes, likely because the shortened time they were facing on the horizon suddenly made the punishments associated with crimes less severe. Who cares when, no matter what happens, you’re going to pay the ultimate price anyway.

There’s also the psychological calculus. Patients with lower five-year survival probabilities were more likely to offend, suggesting that a shortened time horizon may weaken the deterrent effect of future punishment.

The overall takeaway here is that cancer is destructive in a wider variety of ways than most assume. It chips away at finances and ethical standards, leaving the door wide open for a career in criminality. Breaking Bad wasn’t so far off from the truth.

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