Where have All the Cruminals Gone?

Before reading this book, this chapter was the one that I heard the most about from those who had already read Freakonomics. First off, I will say that this book in general is about shock value, that's why it is so popular. The authors are obviously big on commenting on topics that many would find offensive; that's a type of mentality that sells books.

The main question in this chapter is why the national crime rate dropped so drastically in the '90s. Most of you were too young to remember this time, however I wasn't. I remember when the crack epidemic began in the '80s and when it died off (it actually just lost public/media attention) in the '90s. I remember the media basically blaming the crime wave largely on the "poor, inner city dwellers"; they actually meant the African-Americans for all of the footage on the news showed people of color. I was in grade school when the crime wave was at its peak. A major topic for society at large was how to solve that enormous problem. Many wondered what was going to be done. I submit that it wasn't just one or two "programs" that changed things, it was a paradigm shift in society's thinking; a culmination of all of the efforts to attend to the issue (if you noticed, education was left out of the list). Society was threatened and it holistically attended to the problem.

I must admit that the authors' submission on the legalization of abortion being the cause for the drop in the crime rate is logical, almost convincing. What they centered on doing was supporting the argument. What they should have done was try to disprove it (much like a scientific hypothesis, because it is so brash) and by not disproving it it would have been more convincing. I think that this may be a case of experimenter bias. What if I said poor people during that era who were likely to rear criminals (I can hide my meaning too) were more likely to have extra children to gain extra welfare benefits? I bet I would find my proof with the proper research!