Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?
Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?
How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents?
What effect did Roe vs. Wade have on violent crime?
Bill Bratton, police chief of New York from 1993 to 1996 under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, has been credited with cleaning up crime on a grand scale in that city by adopting a zero-tolerance policy on every crime from murder to turnstile jumping to aggressive panhandling. Soon, murders in New York had plummeted 70 percent. But between 1991 and 2000, California's overall crime rate also plummeted by 50 percent. In fact, according to Levitt and Dubner, by 2000 the murder rate and the rates of nearly every other type of crime, from assault to car theft, had dropped to their lowest levels in 35 years. Bratton didn't join the Los Angeles Police Department until 2002, so he can't be the sole cause of the nation's steep reduction in crime.
There is considerable debate among criminologists about what strategies contributed to this significant drop in crime. Some suggest it was identifying and working with at-risk youth; others say gun control was a large factor. Tougher sentencing laws, adding more police on the streets, innovative policing tactics such as those Bratton introduced, and community policing also take credit. Some theorists say that it was the economy, which steadily gained upward momentum through the decade.
Levitt and Dubner disagree with all of the above, and suggest that legalizing abortion in the 70s caused up to half of the subsequent crime drop; unwanted babies are more likely to experience abuse and neglect-and are therefore at greater risk of becoming criminals. Legalized abortion leads to fewer unwanted babies being born. This is supported, in part, by the fact that the five states that legalized abortion in 1970 (three years before Roe v Wade) experienced crime decreases about three years earlier than the rest of the country.
In exploring this assertion, the authors go into detail and offer convincing data to support their case.
If the abortion-leads-to-less-crime argument isn't your cup of tea, there is still a lot of great information left. The chapter comparing the Ku Klux Klan to real estate agents is intriguing. After offering a brief history of the Klan, Levitt and Dubner describe how information=power and how the KKK held significant power-until their secret passwords and writings were exposed to children nationwide on the dinner-hour Superman radio show. Similarly, real estate agents hold power over buyers and sellers when market prices are not accessible to the public.
Go To Page: 1 2
