In countries that have experienced high rates of lawlessness and rebellion from citizens, governments and organizations can use employment to curb or reduce violence and violence related crimes. The belief is that once someone is engaged in productive work in which he/she will benefit at the end in terms of payment, he/she will concentrate on it. In addition, such employment opportunities, where the job itself is free of risks, are embraced. This is different from cases of violence where victims will keep looking over their shoulder constantly because they fear that the long arm of the law will finally catch up to them. In a journal published in the American Political Science Review (2016), C. Blattman and J. Annan did a research using the experimental method to ascertain that employment can be used to change people’s lives for the better; to bring down crime related violence successfully.
Summary
In this article, C. Blattman and J. Annan use high-risk men in a fragile state as a case in point. These high-risk men resulted from two wars that tore Liberia apart; between 1989 to 1996 and 1999 to 2003. After the war, these high-risk men were no longer relevant to the government and their occupation became extracting resources illegally such as mining of diamond, alluvial gold and tapping of rubber.
As the program drew to a close, the government and the forces from UN peace keeping mission wanted to increase state control in several areas. This meant that the ex-fighters would not only be forced into farming alone but also having civilian administrators as well as UN peace keeping patrols from time to time. Two target sites were identified where the program would be executed were selected followed by a recruitment of the ex-fighters from various communities. From this point on C. Blattman and J. Annan were involved in data collection and tabulation. The program paid attention to changing a person’s character. Rather than just providing skills in farming, the program emphasized on producing a changed person in terms of character.
Critique
One of the strengths of the experimental method used is that ex-fighters were used in the study. This is a natural experiment that reflects life as it is. Thus, using real people who have had life changing experiences makes good source of data. Concrete data can be collected also because these ex-fighters are in the program hoping for a better life before them and therefore do not know or even care that they are in the program as study cases. The aim is to rehabilitate these ex-fighters so that they can become normal people who fit into a community rather than standing out negatively. Therefore, this becomes more than a study as it is aimed at the betterment of humanity.
On the other hand, however, there is a limitation that comes along with the study. According to C. Blattman and J. Annan, the program is time consuming as well as being costly. In the case of the ex-fighters, the cost per person was estimated at $1,275 in the year 2009. The program lasted for fourteen months. This cost however is yet to include the cost of constructing the training site as well as the expenses in the head office. In such an experimental study, some costs arise during the program itself. For instance, graduates from Sinoe were given add-ons of $50 in cash. Another face to this weakness is that the money pumped into such a study does not necessarily aim at making profit. This may be tax payers’ money which could have been used elsewhere to revamp the economy. This means that an experimental study cannot have a fixed budget as what appears on paper may not necessarily translate to what happens in real life. In addition, such a program that C. Blattman and J. Annan undertook cannot be recreated anywhere. This makes experimental study unique which offers unique results too.
In conclusion, Liberia’s nonprofit Action on Armed Violence’s program to recruit and train ex-fighters in a war torn country impacted positively on a majority of recruits. Over 1100 men and women from 138 communities were involved the program which lasted one year and two months. This program saw many of the high-risk men embrace agriculture and sorted to make an honest living from it. In as much as an exact program cannot be recreated, governments experiencing similar problems of lawlessness and rebellion can borrow a leaf from C. Blattman and J. Annan’s work.
Work Cited
C. Blattman, & J. Annan. “Can Employment Reduce Lawlessness and Rebellion? A Field Experiment with High-Risk Men in a Fragile State.” American Science Political Review, Vol. 110, No. 1. February 2016. American Political Science Association, 2016
http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPSR%2FPSR110_01%2FS0003055415000520a.pdf&code=eb864e783af4880491802b67ab63f032
