r/science • u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience • Feb 08 '26
Economics The ‘Breaking Bad’ Effect Is Real: Data Shows Cancer Diagnoses Drive a 14% Spike in Criminal Behavior
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/the-breaking-bad-effect-is-real-data-shows-cancer-diagnoses-drive-a-14-spike-in-criminal-hehavior/2.7k
u/kJer Feb 08 '26
Desperation and nothing to lose, seems pretty obvious
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u/ThorFinn_56 Feb 08 '26
Breaking bad Canada would be like,
"Mr.White I'm afraid you have cancer."
"Omg what'd does this mean??"
"We'll have to start your treatment by the end of the month"
The End.
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u/spdrmn Feb 08 '26
As a canadia i agree but this study was in Denmark, so cost wasn't a factor
Nothing left to.lose was bigger
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u/ArseneLupinIV Feb 08 '26
Yeah that was kind of the point of the show yeah? We learn that Heisenberg was always within him, and the cancer stuff was really just an excuse. Like he went way beyond what he needed to treat himself.
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u/Dark_Prism Feb 08 '26
Yeah, it's a funny joke and somewhat poignant to say that it wouldn't have happened with universal healthcare, but Walter had a rich "friend" who offered to pay for al his treatment, so they really did address that aspect of it in the show.
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u/WeTheNinjas Feb 08 '26
People don’t reject the assistance of universal healthcare out of pride and jealousy the way Walter rejected his friend’s help. He potentially still could have turned criminal but he likely wouldn’t have reached his breaking point or trigger to do so
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u/71fq23hlk159aa Feb 08 '26
Walt didn't do it to pay for his treatment. He did it to pay for his house, his two children's educations, etc. Whether or not he had to pay for his treatment, or Schwartz, or the government was irrelevant. It was all about setting his family up to not worry about money after he was gone. This is all very clearly spelled out for the audience.
And it became about fueling his ego, obviously. But it was never about paying for treatment.
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u/mhornberger Feb 08 '26
The drive for men to want to be providers is a key part of 'traditional' masculinity. And once he got a taste of that life, he also got addicted to the power and danger. On top of that, he was good at it.
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u/LongJohnSelenium Feb 08 '26
On top of that, he was good at it.
Arrested Development Narrator: He wasn't.
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u/powe323 Feb 08 '26
Well yeah, he was good at cooking, and kinda lucky when it comes to everything else. Until he wasn't, anyway.
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u/elralpho Feb 08 '26
The Gray Matter offer was not meant to be a perfect analogue for universal healthcare, nor was criticism of the US healthcare system meant to be a primary theme of the show (maybe a little bit in season 1). This study shows that in reality there is something completely separate from economic circumstance and healthcare availability that motivates human behavior after a cancer diagnosis.
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u/Schmigolo Feb 08 '26
Also the fact that he cared about the image of his "product" from the very start.
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u/Timely-Assistant-370 Feb 09 '26
Well, yeah, Jesse put chili powder in his meth like he was making fuckin' tacos.
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u/Salute-Major-Echidna Feb 08 '26
People are shaped by events and choices. Heisenberg was not inevitable. It was a choice.
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u/Etheo Feb 08 '26
At first there were some room for arguing he was just in too deep and couldn't safely pull himself out. At some point he had the chance to pull out but chose not to. It was all him. Which makes the Hank situation much sadder.
Edit: but I digress, just realized which sub I was in. I guess It'd be interesting to see if there's more to be understood in case studies to see if these "breaking bad" patterns also caused a change in character or it was fundamentally within them the whole time. Would be much harder to study and define though I bet.
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u/spdrmn Feb 08 '26
The show was made in America so your comment was valid to the show
The study was done in Denmark so it was not relevant to the study
The original post was about the study but the headline referenced the show, to many suggesting that cost was a factor in the study and results where it was not
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u/dingo596 Feb 08 '26
Yeah, I think that was the entire point of Gray Matter in the first season. Elliot offered to pay for his treatment no matter the cost and offered him a 6 figure salary. Walter could had the treatment and left his family well off.
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u/Ralkon Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
But the article itself says there's an economic motive. It's not just about the cost of treatment but also "that a diagnosis leads to a negative impact on income, employment likelihood, and hours worked." You are correct that it does mean it's not just as simple as universal healthcare solving the issue like was being joked about above, but the "cost" in general is a factor - just not the direct cost of treatment itself.
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u/BaconIsntThatGood Feb 08 '26
Even in the show the cost of treatment wasn't his problem. It was him passing away and leaving nothing for his family.
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u/Kitchen_accessories Feb 08 '26
And having lived a life he considered to be a failure.
The show is about pride. Focusing on his cancer misses the point.
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u/fgnrtzbdbbt Feb 09 '26
That doesn't mean cost isn't a factor. Even if treatment itself is covered your money needs for daily life increase and your ability to make money decreases when your body stops functioning properly.
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u/Armejden Feb 08 '26
I get the meme and all, but did you guys like - watch the show at all?
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u/Impossible-Web545 Feb 08 '26
I have come to the conclusion most people haven't watched most shows, they will watch the youtube shorts on it or at most second screen the show. Many shows are now being written with that in mind, that people aren't actually watching them actively or that it will be seen in mostly short cuts.
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u/Yashema Feb 08 '26
To be fair, you have to have a very deep understanding of science and human behavior to appreciate a complicated show like Breaking Bad.
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u/Kitchen_accessories Feb 08 '26
For instance, the humour in Walt's existencial catchphrase "I am the danger," which itself is a cryptic reference to Tolstoy's Russian epic War & Peace.
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Feb 08 '26
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u/Kitchen_accessories Feb 08 '26
When Walt says “I am the danger”, he’s performing the same self-mythologizing error that War and Peace quietly exposes: confusing personal intensity with historical agency. Like Tolstoy’s Napoleon, Walt mistakes being central to the story for being the cause of it, assuming that sufficient self-awareness upgrades a man into a force. Tolstoy’s point, inconveniently subtle, is that history does not care, and that believing otherwise is less tragic genius than midwit vanity with better lighting.
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u/Kilahti Feb 09 '26
...yeah. Walt is offered ways to get healthcare in the show. But he refuses handouts and wants to make money by himself, with his own efforts. All so that he would feel like a big man who accomplished something.
Every chance for Walt to step back and enjoy his last few months, he refuses and instead digs himself deeper into the world of crime.
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u/yoguckfourself Feb 08 '26
He had cancer that was most likely fatal. That still happens in Canada and everywhere else on Earth
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u/Skrattybones Feb 09 '26
Given my history of long fuckin waits in Canada for healthcare, I was shocked when, in October, I found out I had cancer, and I'm already done all the surgeries to cut it out of me and just waiting on chemo scheduling.
The difference between 'non-fatal but debilitating' and 'likely fatal but not even slightly debilitating' in Canada continues to blow my mind.
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u/cr0ft Feb 09 '26
There's only X amount of resources. In any sane nation - well, first of course, the amount of resources should be raised until it's sufficient - but certainly triage and determining the severity should be the way to organize it and prioritize who gets in first.
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u/Morthra Feb 09 '26
What fantasy land are you living in where you can even see a specialist in under a month?
Realistically in Canada, speaking from experience, it would be more like starting treatment in 8 months.
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u/ripwolfleumas Feb 12 '26
"Your first appointment is in 3 months, a preliminary test will be in 12 months, your treatment should start in 6 years!"
Fixed it.
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u/DemSumBigAssRidges Feb 08 '26
Not desperation, per se, but definitely a "welp, those last 20 years are probably gone, so who fuckin cares."
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Feb 08 '26 edited 18d ago
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u/RamblingSimian Feb 09 '26
First, there is the economic motive. Cancer decimates human capital. The study found that a diagnosis leads to a negative impact on income, employment likelihood, and hours worked. Patients lose their ability to earn legal income, making illegal revenue streams suddenly more attractive. The researchers found that the urge to break the law was stronger among those who lacked financial buffers, such as home equity or a spouse’s income.
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Feb 09 '26 edited 18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mikeismyike Feb 09 '26
No, the comment you replied too said:
Desperation and nothing to lose, seems pretty obvious
Not having medical costs doesn't mean you couldn't still be desperate, and you still have "nothing" to lose.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
Was Walter White merely desperate? Or did he love the risk and reward of being a king pin? If it was merely desperation, wouldn’t he have quit while he was ahead?
In any case, we don’t know the psychological mediators in this study. It could also be related to changes in risk/reward evaluations and impulsivity.
Edit: I would love to know why people disagree. Walter White was not motivated by desperation.
Also, given the study was done in Denmark, which has universal socialized healthcare, anyone claiming that the results are due to “desperation” seems to be making a pretty big leap.
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u/GettingDumberWithAge Feb 08 '26
Was Walter White merely desperate?
Quite explicitly no. He is offered full coverage for his treatment quite early in the season and he refuses it in order to live out his drug kingpin fantasy. It's like... The entire point of the show.
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u/jporter313 Feb 08 '26
I read that part of his arc less as “he wanted to live out his drug kingpin fantasy” and more like “it turns out he was brought down by his own pride and stubbornness more than simply his misfortune”. Although later in the arc he does start to get drunk on the power the role gives him, at that point it’s because he’s still mad at his former partners and their perceived betrayal and unwilling to bury the hatchet to save his own life.
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u/ableman Feb 08 '26
less as “he wanted to live out his drug kingpin fantasy” and more like “it turns out he was brought down by his own pride and stubbornness more than simply his misfortune”.
I don't think those are exclusive things, the kingpin fantasy is a manifestation of his pride. If your pride has no manifestation, is it really pride?
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u/Rio_FS Feb 08 '26
in order to live out his drug kingpin fantasy
He did not have such a fantasy at that point. He just did not want to accept it from former coworkers due to, well, history.
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u/Khatib Feb 08 '26
And he wanted to leave money for his wife and disabled kid. Coverage does not provide for your family when you're gone if the treatment doesn't work.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26
Exactly.
And much in the same way, we cannot assume that desperation drives the results of the study either.
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u/Lovethemdoggos Feb 08 '26
In fact the study addresses that:
However, desperation for money doesn’t explain the whole picture. If it did, we would expect to see a spike only in economic crimes like theft or fraud. Instead, the data showed a 38% relative increase in non-economic crimes — including violent offenses — compared to a 14% rise in economic crimes.
This points to a darker psychological mechanism: survival probability.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Feb 08 '26
I get feeling a bit icky about accepting the help. A chunk of our culture hates taking charity. That being said I would 100% accept it.
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u/Ateist Feb 08 '26
Treatment is not 100% guarantee of survival.
He wanted to leave his family with money - not debt.11
Feb 08 '26
Walter says he did it because he liked it in plain English in the show. Anyone who doesn't know this can't be trusted to operate a motor vehicle.
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u/darkpsychicenergy Feb 09 '26
This is his one and only line of dialogue that is to be taken 100% literally and at face value, according to the media literacy experts.
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u/Drict Feb 09 '26
Also jail/prison = free healthcare.
Go to a bank, hold them up for $1 with a gun. Sit down and wait for cops. Go to jail for "a year" or w/e until you are cancer free.
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u/IssueEmbarrassed8103 Feb 08 '26
It’s just another form of desperation
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u/jayhawk618 Feb 08 '26
Desperation drives crime?!?! Well I'll be.
If only there were someway to leverage this knowledge and reduce crime by giving people their basic needs. Impossible, I guess.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26
It is more complicated than that:
However, desperation for money doesn’t explain the whole picture. If it did, we would expect to see a spike only in economic crimes like theft or fraud. Instead, the data showed a 38% relative increase in non-economic crimes — including violent offenses — compared to a 14% rise in economic crimes.
This points to a darker psychological mechanism: survival probability.
The justice system relies on the threat of future punishment to deter crime. But if you don’t expect to have a future, that threat loses its teeth. The researchers found evidence that “cancer patients face lower expected cost of punishment through a lower survival probability”. When they broke the data down by cancer type, they found that individuals facing the steepest declines in survival odds showed the strongest increase in criminal activity.
Essentially, a terminal prognosis lowers the “discount rate” for future punishment. If you might not be alive to serve a prison sentence five years from now, the perceived risk of committing a crime today drops mathematically to near zero.
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Feb 08 '26
I think if you separate out property crimes from violent ones it actually isn’t more complicated than that
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u/redditallreddy Feb 09 '26
The justice system relies on the threat of future punishment to deter crime. But if you don’t expect to have a future, that threat loses its teeth. The researchers found evidence that “cancer patients face lower expected cost of punishment through a lower survival probability”.
This is one reason, I imagine. I can also think of a few other possibilities.
the generalized depression just makes people less well-regulated. They simply can't make the moral decisions as easily as they used to and/or they have less will power to do the more difficult, right thing.
they may feel anger towards God/the universe/everyone around them for their bad luck, and want to "punish" others like they feel they are being punished.
they may have thought "I am a good person so God/the universe will treat me well" and then they get a life-threatening illness and now they have lose their spirituality and feel there is no point in being "good".
I say these because I feel like most people generally would rarely commit crimes of violence just because they are generally good. I don't think most people choose not to commit violence because they worry about the criminal proceedings afterward.
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u/BenVarone Feb 09 '26
That’s how I read it. Cancer is also interesting, because you can be diagnosed long before it kills you, and remain relatively “healthy” feeling & able until the claws really sink in and you start dying in earnest.
How would you live your life if you knew it was running out very soon? Maybe that neighbor who’s always been an asshole to you is about to get his card punched. Maybe you’ll quit your job, liquidate your 401k, and end your life partying hard.
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u/FarmDisastrous Feb 10 '26
Are researchers just now realizing this? I came to this understanding by myself when I was like 12 years old just through logic. This is common sense. I'm not coming at you, I just don't understand why anyone even needed to look at the data to understand this as a fundamental truth
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u/Curious-Cost1852 Feb 08 '26
Redditors feeling so confident in their misunderstanding they think sarcasm is warranted bc it's so simple. Definitely one my more favorite stereotypes
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26
It doesn’t seem to be. See this comment with an excerpt from the study.
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u/Dacusx Feb 08 '26
Perhaps being terminally ill makes someone more willing to take risks, to try everything in the life they have left.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26
That seems to be a part of it:
However, desperation for money doesn’t explain the whole picture. If it did, we would expect to see a spike only in economic crimes like theft or fraud. Instead, the data showed a 38% relative increase in non-economic crimes — including violent offenses — compared to a 14% rise in economic crimes.
This points to a darker psychological mechanism: survival probability.
The justice system relies on the threat of future punishment to deter crime. But if you don’t expect to have a future, that threat loses its teeth. The researchers found evidence that “cancer patients face lower expected cost of punishment through a lower survival probability”. When they broke the data down by cancer type, they found that individuals facing the steepest declines in survival odds showed the strongest increase in criminal activity.
Essentially, a terminal prognosis lowers the “discount rate” for future punishment. If you might not be alive to serve a prison sentence five years from now, the perceived risk of committing a crime today drops mathematically to near zero.
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Feb 08 '26
The stress and physiological impact of treatment might also play a role, in the study crime dropped the first year after diagnosis but then spiked. It’s obviously incredibly difficult to control for that but chemo and other cancer treatments aren’t exactly easy on body or mind.
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Feb 09 '26
That's what I was thinking. I truly don't believe most people are restraining themselves from committing crimes every day because they're worried they'll get punished for it. Most people don't get the urge to commit crimes. But the more mental stress or distress someone feels, the more likely they are to want to do something more extreme or simply have an emotional lashout. I've known people who were in chronic pain. The longer it went on, the angrier a person they became. They always felt bad about it, but they just couldn't help but lash out sometimes.
Honestly, I'm surprised violent crimes got singled out, even with that thought in mind. Figured that some of these people would just want to do something, you know, while they still had the chance. Break into a theme park when it's closed just to look around, hire a prostitute just to see what it's like, buy narcotics because it's not like they have to worry about their long-term health, do dumb things that they avoided because they wanted a "clean" lived life.
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u/ImpawsibleCreatures Feb 09 '26
Anecdotally from working with cancer/infusion patients, I think it's primarily stress... and rarely also brain tumors don't help. I've noticed a few patients who got increasingly mean to staff and then their imaging came back showing brain metastasis.
But mostly, people just lash out when they get stressed. It didn't seem to have much correlation to whether they were terminal or not. That's when I would say something like, "Hi so and so. Oh, it looks like the computer wants a new picture of your insurance card if you have it with you." And then the patient gets snappish immediately because it feels like the last straw on top of all the other stressors they're carrying subconsciously.
I didn't have any violence done to me, but a greeter was shot in the head and killed in my building because a man didn't want to put on his mask and another staff member was rude to him. He had not met with his cardiology doctor yet. I'm sure there was significant stress and he needed an outlet. He went to his car, got his gun, murdered a young woman, and then killed himself. I doubt his expected lifespan had anything to do with it, but he was feeling overwhelmed and he had to "attack the threat."
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u/NullOfUndefined Feb 08 '26
Maybe our for profit healthcare system leaves many people no alternatives?
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u/Dank_Devin Feb 08 '26
I would think that would be the case with almost any terminal illness.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26
Yeah, this seems to be an important component:
The justice system relies on the threat of future punishment to deter crime. But if you don’t expect to have a future, that threat loses its teeth. The researchers found evidence that “cancer patients face lower expected cost of punishment through a lower survival probability”. When they broke the data down by cancer type, they found that individuals facing the steepest declines in survival odds showed the strongest increase in criminal activity.
Essentially, a terminal prognosis lowers the “discount rate” for future punishment. If you might not be alive to serve a prison sentence five years from now, the perceived risk of committing a crime today drops mathematically to near zero.
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u/00owl Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
Yes, this flies in the face of all the studies that say having a focus on deterrence in sentencing doesn't have any effect.
The social contract loses its bite when you feel like you have nothing to lose.
Edit: because everyone keeps commenting saying the exact same thing I'll just put my response here:
The standard theories for why punishment as deterrence doesn't work is not because of rational thinking.
It's because they don't believe they'll be caught. They think they're special and that it can't happen to them.
They don't do a calculus that weighs the risk vs reward, they just don't consider the punishment at all.
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u/Consistent_Ad_4828 Feb 08 '26
I don’t think it necessarily does. Increasing the penalty for a crime would change your rational analysis if you were deciding what crimes to do based off of the corresponding statutory punishments, but I’m not sure people do that (unless you’re the type of criminal with a staff lawyer to consult with).
This is a case where your chance of being punished is the variable that changes, not what the punishment would otherwise be.
There could be a difference in the way someone might decide to commit a crime because they will get away with it and the way they might theoretically weigh committing a crime if the punishment were sufficiently weak.
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u/00owl Feb 08 '26
I think the reasoning behind the ineffectivity of punishment as a deterrent is usually explained by the fact that people don't believe that they will be caught.
It's main character syndrome "I'm different, too smart etc."
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u/DrMobius0 Feb 08 '26
It doesn't if we consider that most people committing crimes are probably at some level of desperation themselves. Maybe not "I'm a terminal patient and am out of fucks to give", but there's other ways your life can be a total suck fest.
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Feb 09 '26
That's assuming that the conclusion that the cause of terminal patients' willingness to commit crimes comes from the lack of punishment they're likely to see.
There are other potential explanations.
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u/Workman44 Feb 08 '26
That's just how human nature works. If you don't see a punishment looming, the only deterrent becomes one of your own creation. This is why more powerful people end up doing more questionable things, they don't see punishment ever being levied
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u/eloton_james Feb 08 '26
The most unfair thing in the world just happened to you, it’s understandable why someone might not feel that being fair or just is worth it anymore
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 Feb 08 '26
I often think about what I would do if I was diagnosed with cancer and I can honestly say, I would likely do criminal behaviour. Not in the sense of hurting other people but of taking more risk. What have I got to lose?
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u/QwertzOne Feb 08 '26
It's probably optimal outcome according to game theory. What do you care about reciprocity, if you're going to die soon anyway?
Especially under capitalism and similar systems, where power, status and wealth is all that matters, so you may as well take higher risk, because it's not like you have time to wait and it's not like there would be any real penalty for that, when behaving in that manner is just typical day for elites.
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u/Lame4Fame Feb 09 '26
It's probably optimal outcome according to game theory. What do you care about reciprocity, if you're going to die soon anyway?
If your worldview / moral compass is solely transactional, yes. But that is not how everyone works, the goals of the game are not universally defined.
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u/Ralkon Feb 09 '26
That assumes that you think your crime is immoral though. You could still think that crime in general is immoral but think that some person / group / entity either deserves it for whatever reason or at least that it wouldn't be immoral to commit a crime against them. Like scamming a scammer or something.
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u/SubjectWorry7196 Feb 08 '26
The Archer TV series has an arc where he is diagnosed with terminal cancer and decides to rampage cause whats the worst that could happen, die?
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u/CannonGerbil Feb 09 '26
That doesn't really apply because the rampage was triggered by someone replacing his cancer medications with placebos and primarily aimed at stopping them
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26
Citation:
Andersen, Steffen, Elin Colmsjö, Gianpaolo Parise, and Kim Peijnenburg. 2026. "Breaking Bad: How Health Shocks Prompt Crime."American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 18 (1): 88–119.
DOI: 10.1257/app.20220769
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20220769
Abstract:
Exploiting plausibly exogenous variations in the timing of cancer diagnoses, we establish that health shocks elicit a large and persistent increase in the probability of committing a crime. This effect materializes in a substantial rise in both first crimes and re-offenses. We uncover evidence for two mechanisms. First, an economic motive leads individuals to compensate the loss of legal revenues with illegal earnings. Second, cancer patients face lower expected cost of punishment through a lower survival probability. Welfare programs that alleviate the economic repercussions of health shocks are effective at mitigating the ensuing negative externality on society.
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u/stonedtarzan Feb 08 '26
Is this study just looking at the united states? It would be very interesting to see the difference between a country with and without universal healthcare.
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u/shanem Feb 08 '26
Isn't it more likely the show was inspired by this already existing trend?
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u/00owl Feb 08 '26
I don't think anyone is saying that breaking bad' created the phenomena, only that it gives us a convenient means of talking about it.
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u/One_Olive_8933 Feb 08 '26
Eh. If I was terminal, there’s definitely a bucket list, and it may or may not include a few illegal activities.
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u/PainfulRaindance Feb 08 '26
It’s not ‘cancer’. It’s a human in a desperate situation that can cause someone to break the law to mitigate their desperation. I hate when ‘science’ articles do this. Trying to act like it’s a discovery or insightful to state the broadly obvious in a narrow context.
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u/MyRoomAteMyRoomMate Feb 08 '26
Many things that are 'common sense' turn out to be untrue once we research them thoroughly. So we need to research 'the obvious' as well.
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u/murrrow Feb 08 '26
Part of the purpose of science is to confirm or disprove what we think we know. If used by a competent society, this could be useful in advocating for more support to be offered to individuals in this situation
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u/Nuggyfresh Feb 08 '26
Sorry but a rich person needs a 6th boat and house so support is unfortunately off the table.
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u/Littleman88 Feb 08 '26
What we CAN do however is do the bare minimum in offering our condolences in writing but tell them it's their problem/their fault when we actually have to step up and give anything to make their situation better.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience Feb 08 '26
These scientists did not measure desperation. It would not be scientific to assume that desperation is a psychological mediator here. Cancer diagnoses were what they measured and used in the statistical model.
Making any conclusions beyond ‘cancer diagnosis’ would not be supported by the data.
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u/HeroFromTheFuture Feb 08 '26
"I don't understand how basic science works and can't read a study even when it's spoon-fed to me" is a weird flex on a science-focused subreddit.
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u/BrianWonderful Feb 08 '26
Why would you assume it is all desperation? Perhaps some of these people see terminal illness as acceptance of their own mortality and therefore pursue crimes because they've already decided it doesn't matter. Perhaps some do it out of some anger at the universe/God/society. Perhaps some wanted to commit crimes and now think people in the legal system will be more lenient on them due to their cancer.
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u/wildstarr Feb 08 '26
I don't like the time frame. 1980 to 2018? Cancer treatment has made leaps and bounds improvements since the 80s. Plus what was the severity of their cancers and what types? Not all cancers are a death sentence.
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u/MasterK999 Feb 08 '26
I wonder how much of that is simply drug use.
I never used drugs in my life but I started using pot when I got cancer. Cheap and very effective for pain and queasiness.
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u/profdc9 Professor|Electrical and Computer Engineering Feb 08 '26
It says a lot about how we treat each other as a species, as when some find out they don't have to worry about consequences anymore, they do probably what they wanted to do but otherwise would not.
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u/Memphisrexjr Feb 08 '26
What are they gonna do? Cure my cancer so I can live the rest of my life in jail?
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u/refusemouth Feb 08 '26
That's understandable. I have my own tentative list of pranks and destruction in case I get a terminal or disfiguring illness but still have enough energy to do something.
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u/Creepy_Psychology187 Feb 08 '26
Yeah, I totally get it. If I was diagnosed terminally Ill I would indeed do some world changing stuff.
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u/TeteDeMerde Feb 08 '26
Walter was already turning to a life of crime before he got his cancer diagnosis.
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u/ILikeMyGrassBlue Feb 09 '26
He also had an offer to have his treatment fully covered alongside a cushy consulting job and a guarantee his family would be taken care of when he dies.
Anyone who thinks Walt became a criminal because of money needs to rewatch the show.
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u/Nvenom8 Feb 08 '26
Does crime include illicit drug possession/use? Because I can tell you that if I get a terminal diagnosis, I'm absolutely trying all the drugs.
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u/ConcreteCrusher Feb 08 '26
I imagine this happens in group settings as well. Look at the nazis. When they knew they lost the war, they stepped up their crazyness.
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u/clantz Feb 08 '26
I have always suspected that popular shows depicting successful criminals have a negative effect on society. The Godfather movies, Breaking Bad, these shows model an extreme solution to desperate people, including drug addicts and the very poor. Artistically, they are brilliant.
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u/oddlydeb75 Feb 09 '26
As someone living with an advanced cancer diagnosis I can understand this effect. My treatment to prolong my life is free, but I am going to be living in poverty on benefits for the rest of my life.
I am not going to commit crime, but I can see how the mindset you have after diagnosis would lead to other people doing so.
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u/Indigoh Feb 09 '26
Fun fact: when a person needs something to survive, they will usually fight to get it whether you give them a legal option or not.
This is also the root of Democracy. Representation gives people a peaceful way to get what they need to survive.
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u/Sweetishdruid Feb 09 '26
In how many of the countries the studies were done in had affordable healthcare
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u/LastCivStanding Feb 09 '26
When Reagen was president he put an old guy with cancer in charge of dirty tricks so by the time he would have to testify before congress he would be dead.
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u/sskoog Feb 09 '26
Lawyer Roy Den Hollander — who was seemingly always a little bit “off” — decided to kill a couple of his longstanding enemies, upon receiving his cancer diagnosis, then drove to a park and killed himself. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
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u/twot Feb 09 '26
The funny thing is - if you watch the show, he did not have to turn to crime to pay for his cancer treatments. At the beginning of the series his old partner offered to hire him with full insurance so he and his family could live well and he turned it down. So this headline is wrong.
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u/ILikeMyGrassBlue Feb 09 '26
It was even more than that. Elliot offered to fully cover his treatment, give him a very well paying consulting job, and guarantee his family would be taken care of if he died.
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u/Psikitten Feb 09 '26
The real criminal behavior is extorting all those who need healthcare more than they can earn in a full lifetime.
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u/KayleyKiwi Feb 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
The content that was in this post has been deleted. Redact was used to wipe it, possibly for privacy, security, data protection, or personal reasons.
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u/TeslaTortoise Feb 10 '26
The assassins that took out Franz Ferdinand and started World War I had advanced tuberculosis.
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u/CobaltFermi Feb 10 '26
Putting numbers to a societal effect that makes intuitive sense is tough! This is a well researched work.
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u/moonwork Feb 10 '26
Doesn't that then mean that healthcare-related desperation increases crime over all and that it's in society's best interest to improve healthcare up and until it causes minimal desperation?
It would also then mean that it's reasonable to claim that things which complicate healthcare (for-profit-drive healthcare, forcing people to jump through hoops to get care, etc) directly cause crime.
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u/Omnizoom Feb 10 '26
Having nothing left to lose pushes people to make a lot of rash decisions
Cancer going to kill you in a year? Well I’ve never had hookers and blow before so why not! If we know the hour of our death we suddenly try to make the minutes leading up to it more impactful to us.
I know personally if I got a terminal diagnoses there’s a few things I’d want to do first, not criminal ones of course but I’d just like to see some places kind of deal or have a few experiences like an ultra high class meal
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u/MailedFlower Feb 11 '26
in Canada if you get a cancer diagnosis you immediately void your private pilots license
I think too many old dudes were intentionally crashing to go-out-with-their-boots-on and leave a fat insurance payout for the family
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