If something becomes more costly, people will do less of it.Read more at location 1776
Take sports, for example. When college basketball’s Atlantic Coast Conference increased the number of referees per game from two to three in 1978, the number of fouls dropped by 34 percent. Why?Read more at location 1778
The reverse of this fundamental principle also holds true: when you make something less costly, people will do more of it.Read more at location 1786
Unsurprisingly, when it became easier to file for disability, flights suddenly started experiencing more “close calls.”Read more at location 1790
Violent crime in the United States shot up like a rocket after 1960. From 1960 to 1991, reported violent crime increased by an incredible 372 percent.Read more at location 1801
But then something unexpected happened—between 1991 and 2000, rates of violent crime and property crime fell sharply, dropping by 33 percent and 30 percent, respectively.Read more at location 1803
This drop in crime was particularly surprising because it occurred after some academics had predicted that the advent of “super-predators”—aRead more at location 1810
So why is the rising rate of crime reporting important? Recall the example of the basketball referees: increasing the number of officials discouraged fouls, but it also made any given foul more likely to be noticed.Read more at location 1833
This trend indicates that anti-crime efforts in the 1990s were even more effective than is commonly believed.Read more at location 1836
Some stress law enforcement aspects such as increased arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, “broken windows” police strategies, and the death penalty.Read more at location 1843
Others emphasize different factors, including right-to-carry laws for concealed handguns, a strong economy, the waning of the crack cocaine epidemic, or affirmative action polices within police departments. It is even argued that legalized abortion has helped to stem crime.Read more at location 1844
Of all the explanations for the drop in crime rates during the 1990s, perhaps the most controversial is its attribution to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision to mandate legalized abortion.Read more at location 1859
This indicates a high probability that these children, if born, would have grown up to be criminals.Read more at location 1862
According to Freakonomics, abortion thereby became “one of the greatest crime-lowering factors in American history.”Read more at location 1864
Even before Roe v. Wade, supporters of abortion rights decried the crime and other social problems caused by “unwanted” children. Daniel Callahan summarized the argument in his 1970 book, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality:Read more at location 1867
The argument was reiterated in 1972 by the Rockefeller Commission on Population and the American Future.Read more at location 1871
Commission appears to have been greatly influenced by a study published in 1966 by Hans Forssman and Inga Thuwe.Read more at location 1875
The study found that the unwanted children were much more likely to grow up in adverse conditions, such as having divorced parents or being raised in foster homes.Read more at location 1877
Perhaps a family’s poverty was the real cause of these dysfunctions, and women who sought abortions were more likely to be poor.Read more at location 1880
More recently, two economists—John Donohue and Steven Levitt—became the first analysts since Forssman and Thuwe to attempt to present systematic evidence that abortion reduces crime.Read more at location 1887
Most people who oppose this thesis argue from a moral perspectiveRead more at location 1894
It should be noted that, contrary to popular belief, there was not a blanket ban on legal abortion before the early 1970s. While closely regulated, the procedure was legal in various circumstances, such as when the life or health of the mother was at risk.Read more at location 1900
In fact, in 1970-1973, when abortion was “legal” in five states but “banned” in the rest, some of the “banned” states had similar or even higher rates of legal abortion than in the “legal” states.Read more at location 1902
Donahue and Levitt, whose main results mistakenly assumed that no legal abortions occurred in any of the “banned” states before 1973, thus began their study with flawed statistics.Read more at location 1906
The first contention is that aborted children would have been more likely to cause crime specifically because they’re unwanted—sinceRead more at location 1909
A separate, less savory explanation is that abortion reduces crime by culling out certain demographic groups that commit disproportionate numbers of crime, for example, young African American males.Read more at location 1911
While their discussion emphasized the “unwanted child” theory, Donohue and Levitt never separated it from the eugenics approach, which was left without refutation in their work.Read more at location 1915
Indeed, Donahue and Levitt seem to have deliberately avoided the racial implications of their own theory,Read more at location 1916
after all, who would dare to state that abortion lowers crime rates by reducing the population of poor African Americans?Read more at location 1918
Consequently, both men and women tend to be more reluctant to engage in casual sex, especially unprotected sex, when abortion is illegal.Read more at location 1925
Indeed, multiple studies have shown that legalized abortion, by raising the rate of unprotected premarital sex, increases the number of unplanned births, even outweighing the reduction in unplanned births due to abortion.Read more at location 1932
From the early 1970s, when abortion was liberalized, through the late 1980s, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, rising from an average of 5 percent in 1965-69 to over 16 percent twenty years later (1985-1989). For African Americans, the numbers jumped from 35 percent to 62 percent.Read more at location 1934
The evidence shows that the greater availability of abortion largely ended “shot-gun” marriages, where men reacted to an unplanned pregnancy by doing the honorable thing—marrying their partner. But with abortion as a legal option, men became more reluctant to stay with a woman who refuses to have one.Read more at location 1943
With work and other demands on their time, single parents, no matter how “wanted” their child may be, tend to devote less attention to their children than do married couples;Read more at location 1952
The children of unmarried, cohabitating couples also receive less care and attention than married couples’ children.Read more at location 1955
Children raised outside of wedlock experience a higher rate of social problems in nearly every area than children of married couples. Unsurprisingly, children from unmarried families are also more likely to grow up to commit crimes.Read more at location 1961
So the opposing arguments are clear—one stresses that abortion eliminates “unwanted” children, while the other emphasizes that abortion increases out-of-wedlock births. Both effects, conceivably, could be occurring at the same time. The question is: which one has the bigger impact on crime?Read more at location 1965
Work by two economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz, found that when the tests were run correctly, they indicated that abortion actually increases violent crime.Read more at location 1970
I co-authored a study with John Whitley that found a similar connection between abortion and murder—namely,Read more at location 1972
the rate of committing murder began falling first among an older generation—those twenty-six and older—who were born before the Roe v. Wade decision.39 It was only later that criminality among those born after Roe began to decline as well.Read more at location 1978
those born in the four years after Roe were much more likely to commit murder than those born in the four years prior to Roe.Read more at location 1985
“abortion decreases crime” argument encounters further inconsistencies when we compare U.S. crime and abortion trends to those in Canada. While crime rates in both the United States and Canada began declining at the same time, Canada liberalized its abortion laws much later than the U.S. did.Read more at location 1987
In sum, even if one effect of abortion were to lower crime by culling out “unwanted” children—a conclusion derived from flawed statistics—the effect is greatly outweighed by the rise in crime that abortion causes by increasing out-of-wedlock births.Read more at location 1993
However this effect—both among African Americans and the population at large—was more than offset by other factors that caused the massive drop in crime of the 1990s.Read more at location 1998
What Increased Crime? Part II Affirmative Action Hiring in the Police ForceRead more at location 2001
Many police departments implemented affirmative action policies in the 1990s, just as the crime rate was entering a steep decline. But a close study reveals that crime fell despite these programs, not because of them.Read more at location 2003
Affirmative action policies have sought to transform traditional police hiring standards that rely on intelligence exams, strength tests, and criminal background checks. Because, on average, women are less likely to pass strength tests than are males, while African Americans have lower passing rates on intelligence exams and criminal background checks than whites, many police departments adopted new standards in an effort to increase minority hiring.Read more at location 2017
In Chicago, the city paid $5.1 million for consultants to develop “unbiased” exams, only to have unacceptable numbers of minorities once again fail the tests.Read more at location 2041
The risk inherent in hiring weaker officers is demonstrated by the case of Brian Nichols, a thirty-three-year-old, 196-pound rape defendant. In an Atlanta courthouse, Nichols overpowered his guard, seized her gun, and used it to kill a judge, a court reporter, a police officer, and a federal agent.Read more at location 2055
The results were dramatic: crime rates jumped in cities using affirmative action policies that lowered testing standards. Interestingly, however, the use of norming had much less harmful results.Read more at location 2066
However, my study also found that lowered strength standards made female officers more vulnerable to assault and less able to control resisting suspects by themselves.Read more at location 2081
To compensate for physical weakness, women may resort to other means of controlling criminals, in particular by using guns.53 Guns are a “great equalizer,” but they don’t completely offset strength differences.Read more at location 2084
What Decreased Crime? Part I The Death PenaltyRead more at location 2093
Although it would be nice and neat if we could identify a single element as the solution, the truth is that numerous factors combined to drive down crime. One of the most important of these was the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision to rescind the ban on the death penalty. Three-quarters of the states soon re-imposed the death penalty, though it wasn’t until the early 1990s that significant numbers of executions began occurring again.Read more at location 2095
the states that reinstituted the death penalty had about a 38 percent larger drop in murder rates by 1998.Read more at location 2126
Isaac Ehrlich, then a young assistant professor at the University of Chicago, conducted path-breaking research showing that each execution deterred as many as twenty to twenty-four murders. 68 His findings, however, were anathema in liberal academia. His conclusions were roundly condemned, and Ehrlich was denied tenure at the University of Chicago.Read more at location 2134
his contentious findings sparked a good deal of new research into the effectiveness of capital punishment, including a special panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences. The panel came to the curious conclusion that greater penalties generally fail to deter criminals.Read more at location 2137
executions were relatively rare until the 1990s, when execution rates spiked dramatically. This elicited a flood of new research on capital punishment. Moreover, the new studies drew upon much more extensive data than had previously been available, allowing researchers to study crime rates over many years and across every state.Read more at location 2142
The fresh studies resurrected Ehrlich’s earlier conclusions that the death penalty greatly deters murder. The vast majority of recent scholarly research confirms this deterrent effect.70 Generally, the studies found that each execution saved the lives of roughly fifteen to eighteen potential murder victims.71 Overall, the rise in executions during the 1990s accounts for about 12 to 14 percent of the overall drop in murders.Read more at location 2146
One particular kind of crime where the death penalty shows no significant deterrent effect is multiple victim public shootings.Read more at location 2153
The death penalty has a beneficial effect even beyond deterring murders. Because capital punishment can be imposed if a victim dies in the commission of a rape, robbery, or aggravated assault, statistics show the death penalty also acts as a deterrent to these crimes as well.Read more at location 2157
utilizing the death penalty too broadly can create some perverse incentives. Suppose the death penalty is used against robbers and rapists. These criminals would then become more determined to kill their victims and any potential witnessesRead more at location 2161
Polls consistently show that the vast majority of Americans support the death penalty.Read more at location 2164
There is even majority support for the death penalty in such unlikely places as Brazil, Eastern Europe, Japan, and South Africa.Read more at location 2166
as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted, the death penalty was abolished in many countries by judicial fiat, despite widespread support for it among the general populations.Read more at location 2168
Professor Blumstein said...that it has become increasingly clear from statistical research that “there is no reason that the prison count and the crime rate have to be consistent.” The crime rate measures the amount of crime people are suffering from, he said, while the prison count is a measure of how severely society chooses to deal with crime,Read more at location 2177
Is it really surprising that the number of prisoners increased while crime rates fell?Read more at location 2182
a large number of studies indicate that the more certain the punishment, the fewer the crimes committed.81 Arrest rates of criminals are usually the single most important factor in reducing every type of crime.Read more at location 2184
Sensational topics like the death penalty may get the most media attention, but it is everyday police work that really makes a neighborhood safer.Read more at location 2186
Changes in the arrest rate account for around 16 to 18 percent of the drop in the murder rate.82 Conviction rates explain another 12 percent.Read more at location 2187
There has been a remarkable change in attitude toward the benefits of concealed handguns over the last twenty years as thirty additional states have become right-to-carry states, bringing the total to forty by 2007.Read more at location 2203
Today, only Illinois and Wisconsin completely ban citizens from carrying concealed handguns.Read more at location 2207
While concealed weapons allow people to protect themselves from criminals, there are obvious possible drawbacks to increasing the number of gun carriers. People can get hurt in accidents, or gun carriers may use their weapons irresponsibly.Read more at location 2215
The main question is: do concealed handguns save more lives than they put at risk?Read more at location 2217
It is abundantly clear that legal gun owners themselves pose few risks.87 The type of person who is willing to go through the permitting process tends to be law-abiding by nature.Read more at location 2218
the National Journal found that permit holders “turn out to be unusually law-abiding, safer even than off-duty cops.”Read more at location 2225
It is also clear that legally owning a gun makes a person less likely to get hurt by a criminal.Read more at location 2226
So what can individuals themselves do to deter criminals? Having a gun, in fact, is by far the most effective course of action.Read more at location 2228
This holds true whether the criminal is armed or unarmed and regardless of the location of the attack.Read more at location 2231
During the 1990s, for example, assault victims who used a gun for self-protection were injured 3.6 percent of the time. This contrasts with 5.4 percent of those who ran or drove away, 12.6 percent of those who screamed, and 13.6 percent of those who threatened the attacker without a weapon.Read more at location 2232
Gandhi’s strategy of peaceful resistance may have worked against British imperialists who could be embarrassed by public attention, but criminals require other methods of persuasion.Read more at location 2235
criminals move out of areas where concealed handguns are legalized.93 Our study analyzed counties that border each other on opposite sides of a state line. In such cases, counties in states that adopt right-to-carry laws see a drop in violent crime that is about four times largerRead more at location 2237
Violent criminals may be brutal, but they’re not necessarily stupid.Read more at location 2240
Overall, for the first eight to nine years that concealed-carry laws are in effect, murder rates fall by an average of 1 to 1.5 percent per year, while robbery and rape rates decline by about 2 percentage points.Read more at location 2242
Some analysts, however, continue to dispute the deterrent effect of concealed handguns. But even much of the research done by these supposed critics ends up showing substantial safety benefits associated with concealed weapons. For instance, in arguing that more guns create more crime, Mark Duggan provided thirty estimates of the impact of right-to-carry laws.96 But after correcting for four typing mistakes, sixteen of his thirty estimates actually show statistically significant drops in crime, while only one shows a significant increase.Read more at location 2247
Some similar problems are found in the other major studies denying that right-to-carry laws reduce crime rates.Read more at location 2251
Overall, the three crime fighting techniques outlined above—increased use of the death penalty, rising arrest and conviction rates, and the passage of right-to-carry laws—account for between 50 and 60 percent of the drop in murder rates during the 1990s.Read more at location 2255
WhatRead more at location 2259
Note: il tipico criminale violento: maschio ventenne nero. e se la popolazione usa avesse ora meno giovani e meno neri?... nel complesso nn sta qui la spiegazione del calo dei crimini usa: l invecchiamento della popolazione è compensato nel xiodo cruciale dall aumento di afro amrricani... Edit
Violent criminals are overwhelmingly male youths between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five.Read more at location 2261
Despite the sensitivity of the subject, it must be mentioned that race is also a very important factor in crime statistics.101 African Americans are the most likely perpetrators of crimeRead more at location 2267
African American males between seventeen and twenty-five committed murder was seventy-eight per 100,000, or about fourteen times the national rate. For white males of the same age group, the rate was fourteen per 100,000.Read more at location 2269
these factors didn’t play much of a role in pushing crime rates lower in the 1990s. The share of the population between sixteen and thirty slowly declined over most of the last thirty years. This slightly reduced crime, but is offset by the rise in the share of the African American population from 11.7 percent in 1976 to 13 percent in 2004.Read more at location 2277
WhatRead more at location 2288
Note: usa: nel 2004 spira un importante bando alle armi ma gli omicidi continuano a diminuire tra le grida d allarme degli attivisti.... altro provvedimento importante: il brady act. nessuna conseguenza sul tasso degli omicidi... il problema con il proibizionismo? che ubbidiscono solo i cittadini modello nn i criminali. un pò come con le droghe o l alcol. Edit
Commit Murders What Didn’t Really Matter? Part II Gun ControlRead more at location 2289
Gun control advocates seemed certain. They predicted that when the federal assault-weapons ban expired on September 13, 2004—ten years after taking effect—gun crimes would surge out of control.Read more at location 2289
And what really happened? According to FBI statistics, during 2004 the murder rate nationwide fell by 3 percent, the first drop since 2000, with firearm deaths dropping by an impressive 4.4 percent.Read more at location 2295
The murder rate in the seven states with their own assault-weapons bans declined by a smaller amount than in the forty-three states without such laws—an average 2 percent drop in states with bans compared to 3.4 percent in states without them.Read more at location 2298
study funded by the Justice Department during the Clinton Administration found that the effect of the assault weapons ban on gun violence “has been uncertain.” The report’s authors released updated findings in August 2004, analyzing crime data from 1982 through 2000 (which covered the first six years of the federal assault weapons ban). Their conclusion: “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence.”Read more at location 2302
The second most important piece of gun control legislation has been the 1994 Brady Act, which required criminal background checks for gun purchases and, until 1998, a five-day waiting period.Read more at location 2311
The general problem with gun bans is that it’s the law-abiding gun owners who obey them. Criminals find ways to get illegal guns,Read more at location 2313
TheRead more at location 2315
Note: teoria broken window: i piccoli crimini creano un circolo vizioso. colpiamoli duramente.... la tbw fu applicata a ny negli anni 90 con grande successo ma anche altri fattori erano cambiati: in primis il numero di polizziotti e di incarcerati. l evidenza tbw è mista. Edit
The Verdict Is Still Out Broken Windows and Community Policing Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars. —James Q. WilsonRead more at location 2316
from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars. —James Q. WilsonRead more at location 2322
James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling articulated a persuasive new theory about crime. They argued that petty crime such as window breaking creates a vicious cycleRead more at location 2323
So the key to fighting crime is to begin by cracking down on petty offenses.Read more at location 2326
However, other factors in the city besides policing strategies were also changing in the 1990s. Probably the single most important factor was the increase in the number of full-time sworn police officers,Read more at location 2333
However, other factors in the city besides policing strategies were also changing in the 1990s.Read more at location 2333
was the increase in the number of full-time sworn police officers,Read more at location 2335
Evidence for the overall effectiveness of the “broken windows” policy is mixed.Read more at location 2347
some analysts have found little relationship between young males’ view of their neighborhoods as being crime-prone and the rate at which they themselves would commit crime.Read more at location 2350
A more direct approach is to analyze crime rates across a range of cities that adopt the “broken-windows” approach or other similar policing strategies.Read more at location 2352
While “broken windows” may be one factor among many in reducing crime in the Big Apple, a city that implements the policy without taking additional measuresRead more at location 2356
A Few Odds and Ends about CrimeRead more at location 2358
Note: entrare nell illegalità ti rende ricattabile: xchè i migranti illegali lavorano in nero? quindi: rendiamo più difficile fare qs passo.... leggi sulla sicurezza delle armi: chiaro effetto peltzman... bambini e pistole: più pericolose le piscine i lacci gli accendini... la severità paga... continua Edit
Enforcing the law is difficult enough for violent crimes committed against innocent victims. But it’s even more challenging in cases where both parties to an agreement want to break the law.Read more at location 2360
The notion of creating self-enforcement through distrust may seem unusual, but we see the same mechanism at work in other realms, such as minimum wage regulations. Minimum wage laws naturally result in higher unemployment, since law-abiding firms will hire fewer workers if they have to pay more for them. Since some unemployed workers are willing to work for less than the minimum wage, and non-law-abiding firms want to hire them,Read more at location 2395
The principle is similar to that of a street gang that requires someone to commit a violent crime before it will accept him as a full member. Like companies who hire illegals, the gang knows that it’s safer to associate with others who would have something to lose by snitching to the police.Read more at location 2411
Unfortunately, all these efforts are counter-productive because gunlocks and self-storage laws cause more deaths than they prevent.Read more at location 2419
This is because some people offset the safety regulations by taking greater risks. One example is car safety regulations—some people drive faster and more recklessly when they feel safer inside their car. Car safety regulations reduce the number of injuries and deaths per accident, but they also lead to a greater total number of accidents.Read more at location 2422
There is a similar trade-off for gunlocks. Locks may reduce accidental deaths, but they also make it more difficult for people to use guns defensively. And this encourages more criminal attacks,Read more at location 2430
While gun deaths receive a lot of attention, children in the same age range were forty-one times more likely to die from accidental suffocations, thirty-two times more likely to die from accidental drownings, and twenty times more likely to die as a result of accidental fires.Read more at location 2436
Big Penalties for Small Environmental Crimes: A Surprisingly Good PolicyRead more at location 2460
Traditionally, those who committed major environmental crimes—such as a massive oil spill from a tanker running aground—had to pay fines equivalent to the amount of the damages. In contrast, for minor environmental crimes—for example, dumping a barrelful of waste off the side of a ship—the fines were many times greater than the damage estimates. The commission reversed this relationship so that penalties for the more serious crimes became many times bigger than the damages. While the new regulations seem logical, there was a sound reason for the earlier policy. A major oil spill is something that is nearly impossible to hide—we will know with near-certainty that the crime occurred and which ship was responsible. But it is much more difficult to identify the culprit—orRead more at location 2464
Note: PENA OTTIMA E NASCONDIMENTO
