Freakonomics Post 4

Chapter 4 (Where Have All the Criminals Gone?) explored the reasons previoulsy given for the drop in crime in the 1990s after people said it to be "apocolyptic". Levitt and Dubar seemed to find something wrong with each one. One problem was with the "the stong eoconomy" theory.The flaw was many things, but praticularly that the unemployment rate v. crime rate ratio did not match up to its past numbers. You see, in the past, with a 1% drop in unemployment, ther was a 1% drop in nonviolent crime, but in the 19902, there was a 2% drop in unemployment and a 40% raise in nonviolent crime. The conclusion that the authors came to was that the legalization of abortion led to the drop in crime. With the passing of Roe v. Wade, many women who felt that they could not support a child for various reasons just simpy did not have the child that they were already impregnated with. The result was that all of those "uncared" for kids did not grow up to be troubled teenagers looking to cause trouble, which studies showed that most teenagers growing up in the enviroment provided my most women who would have had an abortion, end up doing.

As someone who is pro-choice, reading this chapter gave me another reason to back up my belief. Honestly, abortion and crime are two things that i would never connect, but upon completeing this chapter, the connection is promenint.