Freakonomics: Chapter 4

Such grandiose declarations were commonplace during Ceaujescu’s reign, for his master plan—to create a nation worthy of the New Socialist Man—was an exercise in grandiosity.

He gave government positions to forty family members including his wife, Elena, who required forty homes and a commensurate supply of fur and jewels.

Compared to Romanian children born just a year earlier, the cohort of children born after the abortion ban would do worse in every measurable way: they would test lower in school, they would have less success in the labor market, and they would also prove much more likely to become criminals.

It should not be overlooked that his demise was precipitated in large measure by the youth of Romania—a great number of whom, were it not for his abortion ban, would never have been born at all.

But this diverse army of experts now marched out a phalanx of hypotheses to explain the drop in crime.

Any parent who has ever said to a recalcitrant child, “Okay, I’m going to count to ten and this time I’m really going to punish you,” knows the difference between deterrent and empty threat.

There was perhaps no more attractive theory than the belief that smart policing stops crime. It offered a set of bona fide heroes rather than simply a dearth of villains.

Instead of coddling his precinct commanders, Bratton demanded accountability.

So with murder raging all around, Bill Bratton’s cops began to police the sort of deeds that used to go unpoliced: jumping a subway turnstile, panhandling too aggressively, urinating in the streets, swabbing a filthy squeegee across a car’s windshield unless the driver made an appropriate “donation.”

But there is frighteningly little evidence that his strategy was the crime panacea that he and the media deemed it.

As veteran crack dealers were killed or sent to prison, younger dealers decided that the smaller profits didn’t justify the risk. The tournament had lost its allure.

For any of a hundred reasons, she may feel that she cannot provide a home environment that is conducive to raising a healthy and productive child.

Growing up in a single-parent home roughly doubles a child’s propensity to commit crime.

This theory is bound to provoke a variety of reactions, ranging from disbelief to revulsion, and a variety of objections, ranging from the quotidian to the moral.

The likeliest first objection is the most straightforward one: is the theory true? Perhaps abortion and crime are merely correlated and not causal.