Real Reason for Drop in Crime in the US

There's a book I just finished called "Freakonomics" by economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner that I have to recommend to everyone. Its not political but instead its a study on the real shit in life that actually matters and affects the every day person financially.

One thing they studied is the drop in the crime rate across the US starting in 1992 and dropped sharply in 1995. It plummeted and in many places politicians had to make up shit to take credit for it. It baffled everyone and for a decade no one could REALLY explain why. There weren't more police. The penalties weren't harsher. Education has gotten worse, as has poverty. More illegals are here so that's not it Mr Trump. Gangs were at their peak when the drop happened. So what was it?

They looked at every factor at the time that could possibly have some role in this phenomena. They studied it and ran the numbers in every direction and came up with an unthinkable conclusion. Roe vs Wade is why crime rates dropped starting in the 1990s. When abortion became legal there have been millions of future criminals who were never born.

Here's the logic: Most crime is committed by low income and poverty level young people between the ages of 18 and 24. Considering that Roe vs Wade was put in place in 1973 and didn't hit stride until almost 1980, that takes away millions of potential criminals at the exact time that the drop in crime began in the 1990s.

The effect of legalized abortion on crime (sometimes referred to as the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis) is the theory that legal abortion reduces crime. Proponents of the theory generally argue that children who are unwanted or whose parents cannot care for them well are more likely to become criminals and that an inverse correlation is observed between the availability of abortion and subsequent crime. Moreover, children born under these conditions are usually economically disadvantaged. In particular, it is argued that the legalization of abortion in the United States, largely due to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, has reduced crime in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Opponents generally reject these statistics, and argue that abortion has negative effects on society or decrease in crime is brought about in other ways. (Republicans)
 

Supafly

Retired Mod
Bronze Member
As a social worker with 25+ years with work with youth and children, I can absolutely agree. The kids who got abandoned by their parents or heavily neglected were alomst always at least for some time getting criminal. They just turn to the streets for a new family, and gangs or just older criminals who always are after fresh faces for the petty crimes, who will make them eventually climb the ladder of the career criminal are the natural habitat for those kids.

Legalized abortions prevent this.
 

GodsEmbryo

Closed Account

Cool, thanks.

The reason why I asked is stated in one of those links: how can we tell if this is a case of causality rather than simply correlation? And they show that, but I also agree with the criticism I read about on wiki on this hypothesis, mainly that there are to few variables and parameters to make a conclusive answer. It's interesting though.
 

Ace Boobtoucher

Founder and Captain of the Douchepatrol
Eugenics in action. Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler would be proud to stand with you on this issue.
 

Supafly

Retired Mod
Bronze Member
Eugenics in action. Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler would be proud to stand with you on this issue.

If you are trying to gather some last minute votes, you are out of time, and you have to work harder.

Seperate from that, Hitler thanks you for the mention!

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Rey C.

Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Just from scanning the online data, I see correlation, but no statistical proof of causation. So, I don't know.
 
Think about it. All of those kids would be at the exact age in the exact prime demographic to be criminals but they were never born. There's a big gap in the population of that candidate to fit the criteria. Its not proven but it sure makes a lot of sense. If all the kids born to people who are drug addicts or in hopeless situations living in gang neighborhoods in poverty would have the kids instead of aborting them....where would those kids be today? Not all perhaps but a huge % of them.
 

Rattrap

Doesn't feed trolls and would appreciate it if you
Just from scanning the online data, I see correlation, but no statistical proof of causation. So, I don't know.
I highly recommend reading the book. Each chapter is one some sort of 'interesting' statistic (of which this topic is only one of) and is written in a pretty entertaining way (others include swimming pool versus firearm fatalities, and something to do with what teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common, or somesuch - I read it years ago). They also talk about many different factors that could lead to that decline, and if memory serves, conclude there isn't really a way to give any one thing definitive credit. But they make a compelling argument for what Mariah's arguing.
 
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