Outline The Causes Of Crime Rates Declining

Jasmit Mann

September 28, 2014

Assignment 4 The article addressed the causes of crime rates declining. In the article John Donohue III and Steven Levitt hypothesized that due to abortion being legalized there was a fifty percent decline of the crimes. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a higher crime rate along with high abortion rate. After the Roe v. Wade in 1973 crime was declining. However, in the 1990s there was great crime reduction. Now 18 years after the legalization of abortion crime is falling roughly. There have been various explanations, articles, and research as to why crime is declining; however, there has not been a satisfying explanation for the crime rates to be consistently dropping since the 1990s. So, the article states that when abortion was legalized 1.6 million abortions took place yearly. This was able to happen due to the Supreme Courts decision in the Roe v. Wade case to legalize abortion in 1973, which is stated as the first cause to explain declining crime rates. Five states that had legalized abortion before the case had a prior declining crime rate. Secondly, the article goes on to compare amongst the age groups. The age groups were of people born before the legalization of abortion and those

The hypothesis was proven accurate on the condition that crime was decreasing before and after the Roe v. Wade case. Just as Donohue and Levitt had also predicted there was no difference in the crime pattern before legalization for high and low abortion states. There was, however, the same pattern occurring of fewer arrests for those born after the legalization than those that were born before. Even though, Donohue and Levitt were close on their hypothesis it is not the fully accurate explanation. There still needs to more research done to figure out the