buried in an enjoyable
new york times profile piece
on
economist steven
levitt
, i find a reference to a new paper he’s working on that discusses
the causual factors related to crime reduction in the 90s.
how timely, i think to myself, since kris and i were debating crime
statistics on sunday prompted by a snarky
george will commentary
on how the new york times keeps printing the same article year
after year in which they repeatedly ask why prison populations are
on the rise
despite
a slight drop in crime. in george’s humble opinion, it’s obvious
that this is liberal mush-mindedness at its best, for any idiot can
plainly see that there is a drop in crime because more criminals
are in prison.
of course, george was really presenting the theory that people who
want to build prisons usually put forth and presenting it as an
undisputed fact that soft minds are incapabale of grasping.
george’s snarkiness aside, me wondered, what was the truth?
well, inasmuch as it may or may not be the truth, via the power of
google
, you can get your own prepublication copy of
“Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that
Explain the Decline and Seven That Do Not”
and discover why george might be right:
“Crime fell sharply and unexpectedly in the United
States in the 1990s. This paper examines the competing explanations
as to why crime fell. I conclude that four factors can collectively
explain the entire drop in crime: increases in the number of
police, increases in the size of the prison population, the waning
of the crack epidemic, and the legalization of abortion in the
1970s. A wide range of other possible explanations do not appear to
have played an important role: the strong economy, changing
demographics, innovative policing strategies, gun control laws,
concealed weapons laws, increased use of capital punishment, and
crime prevention programs. While some future crime reduction
remains a strong possibility, it is unlikely that the impressive
rates of decline of the last decade will continue.”