Freakonomics

The book’s fourth chapter, “Where have All the Criminals Gone?” in particular, includes several subjects the authors acknowledge will “provoke a variety of reactions, ranging from disbelief to revulsion, and a variety of objections” (140). By this point, readers already know the authors’ view that the legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade caused the drop in crime during the 1990s because this idea first appears on page four. Rather than simply explaining why abortion lowered crime rates, Levitt and Dubner use a chart to introduce seven explanations commonly cited by experts for the sudden drop in crime during the 1990s, then examine the authenticity of each one. The first possible cause is “a fairly uncontroversial one: the strong economy”

[Additionally, an enormous change to the system is the increase in crime. Evidence shows that between 1982 and 1992 the number of people behind bars in America doubled to one million, and arrest rates continue to soar (Moyers, 1992). There are several schools of thought on the increase of crime, some attribute the influx of “crack” cocaine, and other

In order to test the truth of our hypothesis, we compiled a cross-sectional data set using public resources provided by the United States Census Bureau, and converted them into Stata format (as we have been doing in class). After rigorously checking the data set we had gathered for issues that would impact the significance of a regression analysis such as multicollinearity, we concluded that the data set showed no serious issues and proceeded to test different transformations of the dependent and independent variable, before settling on the most significant and logical options. We then carried out the process of economic analysis, checking to see if our results for their logical consistency as well as economic validity, fine-tuning our regression in order to garner the most rigorous interpretation of the data. After extensive work our analysis reached not only highly significant, but also highly satisfying results, yielding a confirmation of both our hypothesis of the relationship between the frequency of crime and household income, but also our auxiliary expectations for the coefficients of the other independent variables.

The fourth chapter of the book discusses the possible causes of the decline of criminal activities during the 1990’s. A quote that I believe can summarize the whole chapter is, “We have evolved with a tendency to link causality to things we can touch or feel not some distant or difficult phenomena”(Levitt). In this chapter, the author goes over the possible causes of the sporadic decline of crimes in the U.S. What Levitt tried to stress in this chapter is that changes today have possible severe effects in the distant future. He was successful with delivering this message with his examples of the changes in the US and Romania’s abortion laws and its effect on the crime rate. However, since correlation does not really prove causation he went

He then groups innovative policing strategies and increased number of police together but has differing views on them. He agrees that increased number of police accounted for 10% of the crime drop, but he thinks that innovative policing strategies, most commonly cited crime-drop explanation, was in fact not a cause. His next set of groups were a tougher gun laws and changes in crack and other drug markets. Tougher gun laws was actually in fact not a cause of the crime drop and he supports this by providing an example of Switzerland, whom have the more firearms per capita, yet is one of the safest places in the world. On the other hand, changes in crack and other drug markets have in fact caused a decrease in crime rate due to the price drop in crack which caused teens and dealers to consider selling crack as not worth.

In chapter 4 the chapter considers a variety of possible explanations for the significant drop in crime and crime rates that occurred in the 1990s. Based on articles that appeared in the country’s largest newspapers, the authors compile a list of the leading, commonly offered explanations. The next step is to systematically examine each explanation and consider whether available data support the explanation. What the authors, in fact, demonstrate is that in all but three cases–increased reliance on prisons, increased number of police, and changes in illegal drug markets–correlation was erroneously interpreted as causation and in some cases, the correlation wasn’t even that strong.

When explaining why both violent and property crime increased in Wortropolis between 1980 and 2000, the statistics of UCR or Universal Crime Report has to be examined first.

attention to this topic, quantifying the factors most responsible for the observed crime drop has

Another factor that might have led to the increase in crime is the increase in the population of the poor. Generally, the poor tend to be susceptible to crime more than the well-established considering their low levels of income and lack of employment. Their increase in the county will definitely lead to an increase in the crime rate (Braga, 2006).

The Public Policy and the Causes of Crime is about the recent increase of crime trends from the 1980s to the 1990s. There is an increase of cases and the overcrowding of prison due to harsher sentencing. The tougher laws in the 1990s such as the “get tough” laws and “Truth in Sentencing” laws were part of the new requirements. In addition, offenders are getting younger and more violent. In the 1990s, the war on drugs commenced but it was believed that it will fail.

The authors, in order to distinguish the reason the significant drop in crime, conducted experiments and concluded that three out of all the reason, were erroneously interpreted as causation. As a citizen and as a student in this country, I thought that the increase in the number of police is what caused the crime rate to go down. However, from this chapter, Levitt and Dubner thought me that the three cases - increased reliance on prisons, increased number of police, and changes in illegal drug markets – correlation was interrupted incorrectly. Furthermore, the fact that the effect of legalized abortion, is the explanation of the crime drop left me astonished. In fact learning that the legalization of abortion had a large, statistically significant effect on crime is quiet disturbing. All in all however, it’s nice that legalizing abortion not only reduces the crime rate, but also gives women the right to do what they want. What I did like in this chapter was how the authors gave us two scenarios and they decided to pick one and to expand on it. The way the authors chose to present the information was very helpful because after introducing the three cases, they explained the real cause for the crime rate to drop. As readers and as citizens we would expect the three cases to the solution to crime rate but it was unanticipated to find out at last that abortion and crime rate

Since the 1990s and the crime drop, there has been many questions to the reason why. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner thoroughly looked through the different theories but came to a conclusion that the main reason crime had fallen is abortion (117-145). One of the reasons they discuss is whether or not the increase of incarceration affects the fluctuations in crime rates. Levitt and Dubner suggest that the crime system became relaxed due avoid racism; however, the crime rates then began to rise (122). “Between 1980 and 2000, there was a fifteenfold increase in the number of people sent to prison on drug charges” (Levitt, Dubner 123). The purpose of this review is to evaluate the validity of the incarceration effects on crime rates.

The crime rates here in the United States have been on the ascent for a

3.   Donald Trump has been claiming that the crime rates in the United States have been skyrocketing, while reading the “Crime ‘Carnage’” section in the article he never really discusses the crime rates overall, during his inauguration speech he only discusses the crime rates that have happened in the past year. According to the article, the “FBI data shows that the violent crime rate has been on a “decline” since 1991 when it increased up to 758.2 but it was only half of that in 2015 with a rate of 372.6”. The murder rates also increased, increased by 14% according to the analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice but only

The national crime rate has been dropping for the past several years. Over a 38% drop has been reported since 1993. The drop in the crime rate of America is mainly because of three top reasons. These reasons include the involvement of the community, the offenders of small crimes are being interrogated to come up with leads of larger crimes, and the new computer technology available today.