"Where have all the criminals gone?"
Before attempting to answer these questions, students should read Chapter 5 of Freakonomics.
Some questions for discussion:
1. What happened to the crime rate in the 1990s?
2. What explanations were offered at the time?
3. For each explanation offered, suggest one reason for accepting it and one reason for rejecting it.
4. Which of the explanations do the authors believe had a significant effect on the crime rate?
5. In the explanations that are rejected, what examples are there of correlation being confused with causation?
6. According to the authors, what effect did the change in abortion laws have on the crime rate?
7. What impact would this research have if the view was taken that abortion is murder?
8. What impact could this research have on the abortion debate if utilitarian/consequentialist principles were applied?
9. What impact could this research have, if the view was taken that a woman's right to choose should be the deciding factor in the abortion debate?
10. What criticisms, other than ethical ones, can be made of the research in Freakonomics?
Some points to aid the discussion:
1: In Chapter 5 of "Freakonomics - A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything", authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner explore the reasons for the significant and sudden drop in the crime rate that occurred during the 1990s.
2-3: During the early 1990s, most commentators were convinced that crime would continue to rise. After it started falling, they rushed to explain the fall. Among the most commonly cited reasons were innovative policing strategies and an increased number of police, increased reliance on prisons, changes in crack and other drug markets, an ageing population, tougher gun control laws, a booming 1990s economy and increased use of capital punishment.
4-5: Dubner and Levitt explore these explanations in detail. Some are rejected but the authors accept that an increased number of police, increased reliance on prisons and a change in the market for illegal drugs did have an effect on crime.
6: The most controversial aspect of the chapter is the suggestion that the change in the abortion laws was a significant factor in the falling crime rate. The argument is that the children most likely to grow up to become criminals are the unwanted children of poor and uneducated mothers and Roe v Wade made abortion available to this group. Babies most likely to become criminals were disproportionately aborted. The pool of potential criminals was dramatically shrunk.
7-9: The authors of Freakonomics do not accept that their argument should necessarily have any effect on the political and moral argument about abortion. In the abortion debate, there is a fundamental disagreement between those who believe that the foetus is a valuable human life and those who believe that a women's right to choose should be the deciding factor. Pro-Choice campaigners may welcome this research because it seems to support what they already believe. Pro-Life campaigners believe that abortion is a type of homicide that should probably be included in the crime figures.
10: Students could be directed to any number of articles available on the Internet that are critical of the argument in Freakonomics. Some commentators have pointed out that, when the crime rate fell, homicides perpetrated by groups too old to have been affected by the change in the abortion laws fell faster than homicides perpetrated by younger people. Others have disputed the assertion that abortion resulted in fewer unwanted children. After Roe v Wade, conceptions rose but births fell. Illegitimate births and single-parent families increased.