A common misconception in today’s society is that violent crime is increasing. It’s actually been steadily decreasing in the last two decades. I’m sure it would surprise most people to hear this. This is very counter intuitive to everything that we hear about through various forms of media. We always hear stories about brutal murders, muggings, or theft. Not to mention the sensationalization of crime through TV shows such as Hawaii 5-0 and NCIS. Because of advances in media and communications technology, news is able to be broadcast to a much larger audience. It’s crazy when you think about it that we hear about crimes that occur halfway across the world. All this exposure to crime leads people to believe that violent crime is getting worse.
There are many interesting ideas of why every violent crime from murder to robbery has decreased so rapidly in the last 20 years. I’ve heard many suggestions such as more innovative policing strategies, aging of the populations, increased police forces, and good economic times as the reason. These are all quite possible, but the idea that I find the most interesting is the legalization of abortion contributing to the decrease in violent crime. Now this is a highly controversial topic and I’m not saying that I agree with it, I just think its a very different way to look at the situation. The idea of the legalizing abortion in the late 1900s contributing to the decrease in violent crime today was the brainchild of economist and author Stephen Levitt. He theorizes that the legalization of abortion allowed mothers to abort children that would have otherwise been born in unsavory conditions. He expanded this to say that since these kids were growing up in poor environments, then they would be more likely to commit violent crimes in their late teens or early 20s. So pretty much right about when crime started to decline! Again I’m not saying I agree with this but I really like how he looked at this problem from a completely different angle.
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