Paper Title: Breaking Bad: How Health Shocks Prompt Crime

Author:        Steffen Andersen, Elin Colmsjö, Gianpaolo Parise, Kim Peijnenburg

Publisher:    American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 18(1), 88–119, January 2026

The research paper in focus ‘Breaking Bad: How Health Shocks Prompt Crime’, offers a longitudinal analysis of the relationship between cancer diagnoses and criminal behaviour in Denmark.

Leveraging administrative registry data from 1980 to 2018, the authors establish a causal link using a staggered adoption design, asserting that health shocks result in a 14% increase in the probability of committing a crime.

The study identifies two primary economic mechanisms: a loss of human capital leading to illegal revenue seeking and a decrease in survival probability which reduces the perceived long-term cost of punishment. While the paper is technically robust within its econometric framework, it operates within a strictly secular, rational-choice paradigm that fails to account for the metaphysical and moral dimensions of human behaviour during crisis.

The article’s reliance on the Becker-Ehrlich theories of crime reduces the human experience of terminal illness to a series of cold calculations regarding ‘legal versus illegal earnings’ and ‘discount rates’ for punishment.

From a Kantian perspective, this implies that the moral subject is no longer acting out of duty, but is instead governed by hypothetical imperatives—actions taken merely as a means to an end, such as compensating for lost income through illegal earnings. Kant’s first formulation of the categorical imperative demands that one “act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.

By framing the cancer patient as a rational actor who ‘breaks bad’ when legal productivity wanes or death nears, the authors implicitly adopt a godless worldview that views morality as a by-product of economic incentives and state-enforced deterrence.

This perspective ignores the reality that in a secular society stripped of transcendent purpose, the moral fabric becomes fragile. When individuals view their existence through a purely materialist lens, the onset of a life-threatening illness may indeed trigger a nihilistic response, as there is no perceived accountability beyond a legal system that the individual no longer expects to outlive.

The Islamic worldview offers a profound explanation of reasons behind personal calamities as temporary trials. The concept of Sabr (patient perseverance) and the belief in Qadar (divine decree) provide a framework where calamity is seen not as a loss of utility, but as a period of spiritual refinement.

The article notes that crime increases as ‘survival probabilities’ decrease, yet it overlooks the fact that for a believer, a shorter life expectancy does not diminish the cost of transgression; rather, it heightens the awareness of Akhirah (the Afterlife) and ultimate accountability before the Creator. This sense of afterlife accountability provides the solace, peace, and comfort that a secular welfare state—which the authors suggest is the primary solution to this criminal externality—can never truly replicate.

The authors conclude that expansive welfare programs are essential to mitigate the negative externality of crime following health shocks. While the study proves that reducing social support in stingy municipalities increases crime, this focus on the state as the sole arbiter of behaviour highlights the weakness of a purely secular social contract.

Relying on municipal generosity to prevent a cancer patient from breaking bad acknowledges a fundamental lack of internal moral restraint. From an academic Islamic perspective, the responsible attitude displayed during social and personal calamity is not contingent upon the generosity of social security, but is rooted in a moral obligation to the community and a fear of divine justice. The study’s findings, therefore, may not be a universal law of human nature, but rather a diagnosis of the spiritual and moral vacuum inherent in secular societies when confronted with the reality of death.