CRIME & ABORTION

This is the first of a five-part series. Topics include how old and how racist and how wrong some of Steven Levitt's (Freakonomics) conclusions really are. And you thought William Bennett was bad.

(Linked by Amy Welborn at Open Book)


The U.S. Crime reports issued recently have got us patting ourselves on the back, citing no change over last year’s rate. More seemingly good news abounds:

Since 1993, violent crime as measured by victim surveys has fallen by 57 percent and property crime by 50 percent. That has included a 9 percent drop in violent crime from 2001-2002 to 2003-2004. The 2004 violent crime rate - assault, sexual assault and armed robbery - was 21.4 victims for every 1,000 people age 12 and older. That amounts to about one violent crime victim for every 47 U.S. residents.

Still others wrongly give full or partial credit to legalized abortion for reduced crime since 1991.

The truth is that some details are misreported, misexplained, misread and/or misanalyzed.

Links to the entire series here...