Our latest chapter we are reading in Sociology was about crime. Motivations, interpretations and statistics make for some interesting topics on the subjects. The last section of the chapter focused on different statistics and topics that trend on the topic of crime. The first and overall statistic that I saw was the overall crime rate in the United States. The trend showed that over the time of 1985 to 2006 crime rates rose in the early 90's then started dropping heading into the 21st century. This trend got me thinking... what happened? Was there some change in law enforcement? Stricter gun enforcement? According to the book there is no prevailing explanation as to why. Some other explanations have been the booming economy which provides better opportunity for work. There was also a declining market for crack cocaine.
After reading this and exploring the statistics I was talking to my roomates and one of them mentioned a book he read that tried to explain the drop in crime rates called "Freakanomics." The book took different characteristics of society and tried to explain the trends that occured. This particular situation of lowering crime rate was explained by the introduction of legal abortions.
Let me explain: When Roe v. Wade was decided upon, many people who did not plan to have a child was suddenly able to rid themselves of the unwanted pregnancy. Whatever your beliefs on abortion, the claim made by the author is that in 1970, when the abortion was made legal, a generation of high risk children were never born. This trend made it possible that 20 or so years later, an entire generation of young men who would most likely be involved in crimes did not exist. According to the chart in our book, the crime rates begin to drop starting in 1993. This downward trend continues through the 2000's.
Whether this is THE reason for crime rate drop is unclear completely, however it does make some sense to claim that nothing drastic has changed to cause a major shift in the elements important to the many different theories of crime. As in many theories in sociology, the answers are not always easily explained and have many different factors involve. I think this overall crime rate drop is no different.
1 comment:
That is a really interesting take on the reason for the drop in crime rates. I am not sure if I believe that you are correct but it is definitely an interesting idea to consider. Abortion is such a hot topic that this idea must have stirred up a lot of controversy when it was written about. I am really interested in reading this book to see more of how the argument is presented and how he reaches his conclusions.
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