Where have all the criminals gone? Right to avort unwanted pregnancies?
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 13, 2011
Where have all the criminals gone?
In the first half century, incidence of violent crimes in the USA was fairly steady. Why?
Infantile mortality was very high due to lack of vaccination and treatments for curable diseases. All those unwanted children from single parent families died prematurely. and the pool of potential criminals living in poor and uneducated families and in poor neighborhoods was manageable.
Mind you that million died of the “Spanish” flu after soldiers returned from WWI front, and this contagious disease lasted for years. Tuberculosis had no vaccine yet, as many other diseases commonly contracted in early years….
By 1960, violent crime rate increased steadily, so did the economy and the employment rates.
During the period of the civil rights movement, the 60’s and early 70’s, conviction rates declined, as were sentences duration for most of the crimes committed. Why? Judges and political climate didn’t want to be labeled racist or believing in apartheid (fear of being viewed as racist and backward) since more crimes, proportionally, were committed by Blacks and Hispanics living in poor neighborhoods.
Between 1980-2000, the period witnessed a 15-fold increase in the number of convicts on drug charges, and sentence duration increased accordingly.
By 2000, the US prison system had more than 2 million convicts, a 4-fold increase as of 1972.
Mind you that a prisoner costs $25,000 per year to keeping him behind bars and away from the streets…
As of early 1990, crime rates of all categories, especially violent crimes, started to decline sharply and steadily. Criminology experts had warned that crime epidemics will get out of control, and they needed so time to realize that it was the opposite trend that was taking its steady course.
Between 1991 and 2001, crime experts extended many explanations for this aberrant trend of crime decline. Here are a few of the explanations with frequency of citations in the media:
1. Innovative policing strategies: 52 citations
2. Increased reliance on prison: 47
3. Changes in crack and other drug markets: 33
4. Aging population: 32
5. Tougher gun-control laws: 32
6. Strong economy: 28
7. Increased number of police force: 26
8. Increase use of capital punishment: 24
9. Concealed-weapon laws
10. Gun buybacks policies…
Only 3 of the above 10 explanations had significant effects on crime decline, mainly factors 2, 3, and 7.
There are strong correlation, if not causative explanation, among the trends of increased reliance on prison, prison duration, increase conviction rates and the number of law and order effective in order to round-up, capture, process, and prosecute criminals. Consequently, it can be said that the increase in police forces was associated with a political policy of increasing conviction rates and expanding the prison system. These factors accounted for almost one-third of the crime drop.
In that period, cocaine and heroine prices dropped, and it was no longer worth sacrificing years in prison for small returns on crimes…
The main factor that was behind the decline and accounted for two-third was never mentioned or even contemplated. This factor needed about 17 years of incubation (gestation) before it generated its powerful effect, and it is the legalized abortion law that took effect in 1973 in all US States. A few large cities in States such as New York, Illinois, California… that had legal abortion laws before 1973, all had witnessed decline in crime rates before all other States.
All those unwanted children, born from single mothers or living in single families in poor neighborhoods and uneducated parents, were not born and had not to be raised to emulate their predecessors, as highly potential criminals in the waiting and the making.
That is what the analysis of Steven Levitt showed from torturing huge data-bases on the subject. Read Freakonomis.
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