Preview

freakonomics

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
567 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
freakonomics
Freakonomics

At the time of Christmas Day of 1989 was when there was an overlap of crime rate. While in Romania the abortion Nicolae Ceausescu went out of power the crime rate in the United States was at its peak. Eventually in 1990 crime rate began falling, so fast that no one had a clue as to what was going on and what was the cause of this. In 1991 to 2001 there was 8 articles published as how law changes the crime rate. When in all reality only three can be shown to have contributed to the drop in crime. Levitt believes that the rest of the articles are simply imagination. He also believes that one of the greatest causes of the crime drop does not appear on the list and also did not get any sort of mention on the newspaper.
Levitt believes that one reason was the economy. Crime began in early 1990's was caused by the unemployed. He stated that having a stronger job market would make it less attractive for crimes to come up. During the 1990's the unemployment rate fell by 2 percentage points; nonviolent crime, while fell by roughly 40 percent.
Levitt also believed that legalization of abortion was the real crime stopper. Legalized abortion led to less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime. He believed that the children born after Roe vs. Wade hit their adolescent years the crime began to fall. This meant if the mothers that did not want children and had those children were more likely to be the criminals, then the mothers that wanted children and were brought up with fathers were less likely to cause any crimes. He tested this theory by looking at the effects. Measure the crime data in the five states that abortion was legal before the law changed. Which come to find out the crime rates did indeed drop.
Levitt discusses number of correlations between a child's personal circumstances and his school performance based on the ECLS data. Such as, students from rural areas tend to do worse than

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Best Essays

    Nt1110 Unit 11 Lab

    • 2482 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Cohen, L., & Felson, M. (1979). Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach. In F. Cullen & R. Agnew (Eds.), Criminological Theory Past to…

    • 2482 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In chapter five of Freakonomics, the author illustrates a thought-provoking circumstance regarding an eight-year-old girl and her two best friends. Best friend A’s parents are known for keeping a gun in their home, therefore the eight-year-old girl parents forbid her to play there. Instead, her parents prefer that she spends most of her time at best friend B’s house, which has a swimming pool. The girl’s parents feel good about making such an intelligent decision to protect their eight-year-old daughter.…

    • 189 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chapter 6 of this book talks about whether or not the name that a parent give their child matters. Levitt provides an example about a New York City man who was named Robert Lane, he named his first son Winner and then named his next son Loser. Despite what his name suggests, Loser Lane succeeded in life, moving up in the NYPD. Winner Lane however, has been arrested nearly thirty six times. He tells a story of a woman who named her daughter Temptress, meaning to name her Tempest, the girl went on to do things like inviting men over while her mother was at work. Levitt then asks the question, does the name given to a child affect his life?…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esteemed economists and writers, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, wrote the book Freakonomics to delve into the inner workings of economics. Freakonomics discloses the unpredictable effects of incentives beneath ordinary situations. Levitt and Dubner sail on an informal tone by asking questions and breaking up their writing, in order to maintain a witty connection with the audience.…

    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Levitt and Dubner, in chapter 4 of their book “Freakonomics”: "Where Have All the Criminals Gone?" give a description of several interconnections in the midst of different instances. The two writers affirm that in 1988 and 1994, there was a reduction in the rates of crimes.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freakonomics chapters two, three, and five intrigued me the most due to the chapter titles. In chapter two, the authors discuss the title question of the chapter, “How is The Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents.” How does the world relate to one another, and how are groups the same in an information asymmetry aspect. In chapter three, the authors discuss the title question of the chapter “Why do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms”, are drug dealers more likely to live with their mom, or how does the lifestyle impact the actual person. In chapter five, the authors discuss the title “What Makes a Perfect Parent” what makes a parent perfect,…

    • 2153 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In Chapter 4, for example, it talks about the crime rate drop in the 1990’s, contrary to economic experts’ earlier beliefs. The authors explain that the case of Roe vs. Wade in the 1970’s, which ended with the legalization of abortions, was the main cause for crime rates to decrease. They point out that the typical child that was unborn in the earliest years of legalized abortion would have been 50 percent more likely to live in poverty and 60 percent more likely to grow up with just one parent. According to their research, these two factors are among the strongest predictors that the child will become a criminal. After the legalization of abortions from the case, the women who didn’t want to have kids did not have kids. Therefore, the children that would most likely turn into criminals weren’t born. In the book it reads, “When a woman does not want to have a child, she usually has good reason. She may be unmarried or in a bad marriage. She may consider herself too poor to raise a child…She may believe that she is too young...For any of a hundred reasons, she may feel that she cannot provide a home environment that is conductive to raising a healthy and productive child.” By this we can see the rational thinking people used in this…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Levitt, with the aid of Dubner, can find a correlation between any two things. For example, the reason why crime suddenly dropped in the 1970’s is the opposite of what many would expect. Many turn to the logical explanations, such as an increase in law enforcement or higher paying jobs. Neither of those are the actual reason why crime suddenly dropped so dramatically, though.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    c. How can one explain the trend of Property Crimes? -The rate of property crimes was on an increasing trend from the 1960s to the 1990s, and then it started to drop. This is because, in the 1990s, most property owners realized the importance of putting up security measures to keep away criminal offenders; this helped to reduce the rates of property crimes reported to the police. Additionally, huge cities adopted tougher law enforcement practices, which deterred criminal activities. d. Offer an explanation for why Robbery declined from 1960-2012.…

    • 1012 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freakonomics Analysis

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Steven Johnson once said, “If you look at history, innovation doesn't come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect”. In the book, Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dinner, Levitt explains that incentives can change one person's perspective on a situation and motivate them to do something they have not done before. People use incentives to steer others to do something in their favor. Incentives can be against you because they can change your moral incentives to twist a system into their own favor, which involves cheating.…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many commonly conceivable explanations are given as the answer to this such as increased number of police, more imprisonment, and an expanded police force. However, a more anomalous explanation for the drop in crime was that of legalized abortion. When abortion was made legal after the Roe vs. Wade case, the amount of women who had abortions increased dramatically. Levitt stated that studies showed, “childhood poverty and a single-parent household-are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future”(138). He also explained that “abortion led to less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime”(139). This theory is something that reaches so far out of the common person’s comfort zone and appears to be so unbelievable; it stretches beyond our common way of thinking. However, the statistics suggest that this could be a very accurate reason behind the drastic drop in crime. For example, a statistic Levitt includes in his argument states, “Since 1985, states with high abortion rates have experienced a roughly 30 percent drop in crime relative to low-abortion…

    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Freakonomics

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the novel Freakonomics, Levit and Dubner try to take a unique approach to analyzing reasons behind why things occur in our society. Essentially, “What this book is about is stripping a layer or two from the surface of modern life and seeing what is happening underneath.” (10) A perfect example of this is how they discovered that the legalization of abortion was the cause of crime dropping to its lowest level in thirty-five years. While most expert economists simply attributed the drop to the wellness of the economy, the increase in gun control laws and the new policing strategies, Levit and Dubner searched for other possibilities where no one else thought to look. That is when they realized that approximately twenty years before the drastic drop in crime, abortion was legalized. Studies have shown that “… a child born into an adverse family environment is far more likely than other children to become a criminal.” (4) Thus, this theory was proven further by the fact that around the time when these children would have begun committing crimes, there was significantly less crime.…

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Taibbi's Analysis

    • 147 Words
    • 1 Page

    Taibbi states, “Violent crime has been dropping for the past two decades….” He explains how its been a very long time since crime rates were this low . But why exactly? Looking at this from a historical point of view, the crime rate for serious crimes, including murder, rape, and assault, has dropped significantly since the early 1990's mainly because of changes in technology and police enforcement. Technology enables us today to have a fast and easy way to acquire unlimited access to tons of information. These advancements has given detectives powerful new tools with which to analyze blood and DNA samples or other forensic evidence. Police enforcement has also made an impact on the decrease in crime rates today. For example, the violent crime…

    • 147 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Three Strikes

    • 2374 Words
    • 10 Pages

    In the late 80’s the state of California was in it worst economic slump since the great depression of the 1920’s. People who wanted to work couldn’t find jobs. Some people turned to crime to feed themselves and survive. Meanwhile, crack cocaine was having a devastating effect on low-income communities. Public safety was a major issue for California. History shows us that in bad economic times crime will be more prevalent. Crime waves follow the economy and demographics. Its simple, the more young and unemployed people there are in the state, the higher crime rates will be.…

    • 2374 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Steve Levitt and Jon Donahue argue that the legalization of abortion reduces future crime. I agree with Levitt and Donahue's logic that abortions decrease crime rates because the unwanted children are more susceptible to commit crimes. Levitt and Donahue's argument suggests thats abortions are in a sense a positive externality. If women receive an abortion, then society also receives the benefit of less future crime. Accordingly, abortions should be provided be the government, especially if abortion rates are falling due to high prices or few places offering the service. The service may be underproduced, due to the unrecognized willingness of third parties to pay for abortions. Similarly, most birth control is free because of the benefits it…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays