Conducting a randomized controlled trial (RCT) can be an ideal way to avoid omitted variable and selection biases that complicate other research designs. However, the way that the data from an RCT are collected and analyzed can unintentionally reintroduce those biases. In this study we replicate and extend the analyses of data from three RCTs related to prisoner reentry, to more cleanly identify the causal effects of treatment. In two of the three experiments, our conclusions differ substantially from those of the original studies. We discuss best practices for running and analyzing RCTs, and consider our extension results in the context of the prisoner reentry literature.

进行随机对照试验（RCT）是避免遗漏变量和选择偏差（使其他研究设计复杂化）的理想方法。但是，从RCT收集和分析数据的方式可能会无意间重新引入这些偏见。在这项研究中，我们复制并扩展了与囚犯再入有关的三个RCT的数据分析，以更清晰地确定治疗的因果关系。在这三个实验中的两个中，我们的结论与原始研究的结论有很大不同。我们讨论了运行和分析RCT的最佳做法，并在囚犯再入文献的背景下考虑了扩展结果。