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Legalized abortion reduces future crime rates according to a famous economic theory by economist Steven Levitt, though other researchers strongly debate these findings.
The Crime Reduction Theory
- Steven Levitt and researcher Steve Sailer proposed in a 1999 research paper that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s led to a drop in crime rates two decades later. They popularized this idea in the book Freakonomics.
Academic Debate and Criticism
- Methodology Critiques emerged after other economists reviewed Levitt's data. Critics found statistical calculation errors in the original paper and argued that other major factors—such as increased police numbers and the waning crack cocaine epidemic—better explained the drop in crime during the 1990s.
- Ethical and Social Concerns mean many sociologists and ethicists reject the theory entirely. They argue that linking birth rates of specific groups to future crime relies on flawed social assumptions and ignores complex systemic causes of poverty and crime.
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by DAP Crime — Since their mothers were having abortions at three times the white rate, that should have driven down their youth murder rate. Instead, from 1984 to 1993 the.
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Nearly 60% of the decline in murder since 1990 involved killers aged 25 and older—who were born before Roe v. Wade.5. Other nations with high abortion rates had ...
Jan 14, 2016 — The theory: legal abortion is preventing would-be criminals from being born. by Dara Lind and German Lopez. Updated Jan 19, 2016, 9:26 AM PST.
You can look at the murder rates yourself. You can see how effective abortion was at curbing crime. The youth born after Roe vs Wade went on to ...
15.8% for UCR murder to 18.9% for violent crime. The consistency of the strong negative relationship between abortion and. crime shown in Table 4is striking.
