Freakonomics Page #6

We have a crime problem that is not out of control

-all over the country -I am pro-choice

extremists bombed more than 30 clinics across the country

People like you allows baby ...

When I started studying crimes in the early 1990s,

it was rough at its peak

the highest it's ever been in the history of United States

and all the experts expect it to go higher and higher

The warnings are everywhere.

But then, to everyone's surprise, something happened.

I don't know, I guess you're right

Supposed it'd be better off never been born at all.

-What did you say? -I said, "I wish I have never been born."

Homocide rate went up in half of the nation's cities

(Christmas, 1989) 373 homocides last year

up 65.7% over 1987

Murder is a national problem -

up an average 11% across the country.

In Bucharest tonight, the post communist leader Nicolae Ceauseascu

and his wife, had been executed.

Pictures of the former communist dictator lying in state

-excuted by the firing squad -Crime and violence are now

... the top concerns of many Americans.

You've been given a great gift George.

A chance to see what the world would be like without you.

As the 1980s drew to a close, law enforcement experts predicted

that the crime rate that has been preceeding decades

would continue to rise.

Would be the decade of the mega criminal

There was only one problem ... it didn't happen.

Across America, the crime rate is down.

The FBI has some good news about crime, it's down.

It's clear the numbers are dropping, what's not clear is why.

What's behind this dramatic change?

Primarily it's the Police, the police strategies.

We've incarcerated our criminals and thus taken out the population.

With those people, who did the crimes.

Experts and officials lined up to offer explanations for the drop in crime

Community police officers, better prevention

Their explanation included more innovative policing,

harsher criminal sentences, changes in the crack market,

increase gun control, a strong economy, more police on the streets

But economist Steven Levitt examined these explanations.

Evaluated the most popular ones.

When you looked at the data carefully,

it's just not clear that they really have the impact people suspected.

By ananlyzing the reasons most often cited by those in the press,

Levitt was able to separate the more likely factors

from the less likely ones

The crime drop explanation most often cited

was that innovative policing strategies

had been introduced to some cities.

NY City, for example, implementeded sweeping law enforcement changes

from Police Chief Willam Bratton's ComStat System

to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's crack down on small street crime

The reductions in crime that has been taken place in NY City

are pretty close to miraculous

NY City, had among the biggest declines in crime

of any city in the country.

So, there's an enormous amount of fan fair ...

... given to the strategies of Guliani and Bratton.

But crime felt everywhere,

it's hard to find any city in United States where crime didn't plunge.

And also, crime was down 20-30% before Gulian ever took office.

So, a number of things make me suspecious

that it was really the Placing Strategies.

The second reason most cited for the crime drop,

was an increase in reliance on prisons.

We've locked up a million more americans since the 1990s

There are now 2 millions americans in prison,

and that's got to reduce crime.

Levitt recognizes that in prison more people will ...

in short term, bring crime rate down.

By my estimate, about 30% of the decline in crime

can be attributed to the fact that we got very tough on crime

in terms of locking up criminals.

This is crack cocaine

The 3rd explanation for the crime drop, most often cited in the press,

were changes in the crack market.

Now experets say, crack cocaine may finally be on the decline.

The peak of the crack epidemics came in at the late 80s and the early 90s

At that time, an enormous amount of the homocide in particular

can be attributed to the crack.

But for various reasons

the amount of violence that has been associated with the crack trade

really faded.

That's not the move no more

So that can explain 15% of the decline in crime.

Other possible reasons for the crime drop examined by Levitt include:

tougher gun laws.

the 1990s economic boom and an increase in police nation wide.

So Levitt did not entirely discount these

He sees these only account for a small fraction

of the overall crime drop

There are millions factors that drive crime,

but how do you determine the particular competition?

Overall, what Levitt found from all these reasons

was taken together, they only explain half of 1990s crime drop.

The other half remained a mystery.

So what happened?

Well, let's remind

to what many Americans may have seen as irrelevant incident

in a far away place.

When Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu

was executed by his own people on Christmas Day 1989,

it marked the end of the brutal totalitarian rein

that has lasted 24 years.

In his earliest days, Ceausescu's Romania faces struggling economy

and he sought to vastly increase the workforce.

To achieve this, Ceausescu outlawed abortion in 1966.

Agents known as the Montrose Police

rounded up women to give pregnancy tests

and attacks the infertiles.

Across Romania, women were forced to have children

and they could no longer choose whether it was right to do so.

Romania's birthrate doubled.

But more and more births across the country were, not surprisingly unwanted.

And result in trouble up bringing.

Of the infants forcibly born in the first year,

more disenroll school, suffered more job performance,

and with thus more likely to become criminals,

than those born of the previous year.

Even controlling for the aids, income, health and education of the mother

But what do winds in Romania a long time ago,

have to do with crimes in US in 1990s?

According to Steven Levitt ... a lot.

You've been given a great gift George, a chance to see

what the world would be like without you.

What I believe to be true and the evidence supports it,

is a hypothesis which many people find jarring and disturbing.

But nonetheless, I think it's probably right.

Good evening, in a landmark ruling that Supreme Court today legalize abortions.

In 1973, in a case called "Roe V. Wade"

the Supreme Cort rules that abortion, which has been only legal in 5 US states,

would now be legal nation wide.

Precisely the opposiste of what happened in Romania,

The legalized abortions in 1970s,

was one of the prime reason why crime felt in the 1990s.

Because the whole generation of unwanted children were never born,

because of legalization of abortion.

If you fast-forward 20 years

to the point in time when they were going to be their peak crime ages,

they simply weren't there to do the crime.

You see George, you really had a wonderful life.

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