Cause and Effect

Here in NYC, Rudy Guiliani is a hero because he got crime under control through a combination of increases in police on the street and computer driven policing strategies.  During his tenure as Mayor, from 1994 to 2002, crime rates in the city dropped by a huge amount leading to improved quality of life and an economic rebound.

Now Steven Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, has put forth a new theory on this massive reduction in crime that NYC and the rest of urban america has experienced in the past 10 years.

Levitt has done extensive research on the link between the legalization of abortion and the sweeping reduction in crime rates in urban america 15 to 20 years later.  Levitt's research suggests a statisticly significant link between the legalization of abortion and the subsequent reduction in urban crime rates.

On the surface, this explanation makes so much sense that I have to wonder why nobody posited it until now.  Unwanted, unloved, and uncared for children are so much more likely to turn to a life of crime than wanted, loved, and cared for children.  And like it or not, legalized abortion has resulted in a lot less unwanted children over the past 20 years.

Clearly more research is needed to substantiate this link.  But my gut says there is something to this analysis.

And I don't think the answer is to make abortion more prevalent in our society.  But clearly criminalizing abortion isn't the answer either.  I think we need to understand that unwanted children are not good for our society and we need a rational (ie secular) debate on this issue that leads to pragamatic solutions to the issue of unwanted children.

Comments

[Tom Watson]

Fred, surprised a top-notch capitalist didn't see th real reason - supply and demand.
NY's murder and violent crime rates took a huge leap in the 80s because of the crack cocaine epidemic. But supply overtook demand, the price dropped to "almost free," and people stopped killing people over it.
Also, David Dinkins' community policing initiative - yes, Dinkins launched it - paid some dividends in going after local, quality of life crime in neighborhoods.
Don't always believe the conventional wisdom - or the NYT!!

[Damian]

I haven't read the report, but I think that sounds like a hell of leap. I agree with the previous poster - what other things happen during that time period....

[Dan Robbins]

James Taranto has been writing quite a bit about the "roe effect" in the Best of the web at the WSJ's Opinion Journal. This link has a good summary:

Roe Effect

[Chris]

On the surface - it sounds more like correlation than causation. Teenager sex has gone up over the last 20 years too - but nobody is claiming it caused crime to decrese because all the kids were busy!

[ellen]

Interesting theory. You know some people say, "abortion foes are only interested in the fetus until it is born."

[Christy]

I find the idea that fewer unwanted children brings great societal benefits appealing, and I admittedly haven't read the report, but it seems to me that one would need an accurate estimate of how many illegal abortions took place before Roe v. Wade to even begin to substantiate Levitt's claim. Such an estimate would be exceedingly difficult to obtain, because of the secretive nature of such abortions. Given that (I assume) teen pregnancy levels are higher than they were 20 or 30 years ago, I also wonder how many teens who have babies find that they really want those babies after they find out what happens to their lives and prospects for the future. One could argue that there might be even more 'unwanted' children now.

[Christy]

I find the idea that fewer unwanted children brings great societal benefits appealing, and I admittedly haven't read the report, but it seems to me that one would need an accurate estimate of how many illegal abortions took place before Roe v. Wade to even begin to substantiate Levitt's claim. Such an estimate would be exceedingly difficult to obtain, because of the secretive nature of such abortions. Given that (I assume) teen pregnancy levels are higher than they were 20 or 30 years ago, I also wonder how many teens who have babies find that they really want those babies after they find out what happens to their lives and prospects for the future. One could argue that there might be even more 'unwanted' children now.

[Christy]

(Fred... any idea why every time I post I manage to double-post? would hitting not "preview" first help?)

[pettifogwarnsnoggle]

this isn't that new in terms of research. people who dispute his conclusions include this: http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm

i'm sure you won't much like steve but he does provide a data based argument against levitt's hypothesis. whether you discount it based on his opinions is your choice.

he does note that there was a blip up and a blip down, so abortion is an unlikely answer, given that it doesn't explain why it went up. it may be that cause x made things go up and abortion made things go down, but one would need to explain the rise as well as the fall to exlcude convolving explanations.

[DeusExLibris]

Here is a link to the original (2001) paper:

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/bclbe/workingpapers/PDFpapers/olinwp2000-18.pdf

In short, Profs Donohue and Levitt's most compelling argument is that five states that legalized abortion in 1970 (three years prior to Roe v Wade) showed a decrease in crime that preceded the nationwide trend.

[Barbara]

My neighbors are slime and their children certainly won't be good for society. Maybe we'll get lucky and allow society to kill them, too.

[Christy]

I read the 2001 very quickly because of time constraints, but one thing really stood out, and that is in figure 4 (a-c), at least some of the effect seems to be driven by one outlier -- NY. The rest of the points, if you ignore the line, are clustered in a way that appears to be somewhat random (some states had a high rise in abortion, with little change in crime, others had the opposite effect, others had the expected effect). I noticed a table that excluded the effect of NY, but I couldn't tell without referring back to the text how one was to interpret the huge drop in the effect's coefficient. It would be interesting to see the same figure with NY excluded from the analysis. It appears to me that the minimally, the slope relating crime to abortion would be shallower.

[Clarkie]

Was it crime rates that went down under Giuliani or violent crime rates? I happened to witness personally the recently exposed practice of under-reporting or misreporting of crimes at police precints. I was mugged in the lobby of my apartment building during the early '90's. In the process of the mugging, I was punched in the face, knocked down and minorly sexually assaulted. You can imagine my surprise when the police report came back and the crime was listed as burglary. I found that my story is not that uncommon. When you combine this practice with demographics that show a general downswing in population of new yorkers between the ages of 18-25 at that time (which may or may not have anything to do with legalizing abortion), it's pretty easy to express to the public that crime rates went down, and have the stats to back it up.

[desi]

ok i really need some advice about the cause and effect of murder please help
gratsi!!!