Summary of Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Freakonomics addresses the sudden drop in crime rates during the 1990’s, and the various factors which may have caused it. Astonishingly, research shows that one of the major factors contributing to the drop in crime rates was the establishment of Roe v. Wade. Chapter 4 weighs this theory against other theories such as “tougher gun laws,” “number of police officers per capita,” and “increased use of capital punishment.” Of all these possible explanations, states with high abortion rates take responsibility for a 30% drop in crime relative to states with low abortion rates.

In 1996, Nicolae Ceasescu of Romania declared abortion illegal. Reasearchers found that children born in the wake of the abortion ban were much more likely to become criminals than children born earlier. Also, in the instances where a woman was denied an abortion, she often resented her baby and failed to provide it with a good home.

“Women who were likely to have abortions were often unmarried, or in their teens, or poor. One study shows that the typical child who went unborn in the earliest years of legalized abortion would have been 50 percent more likely than average to live in poverty; he would have also been 60 percent more likely to grow up with just one parent. These two factors—childhood poverty and a single-parent household—are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future.

“The very factors that drove millions of American women to have an abortion also seemed to predict that their children, had they been born, would have led unhappy and possibly criminal lives”

Tougher gun laws

Scenario:
"A tough guy and a not-so-tough guy exchange words in a bar, which leads to a fight. It’s pretty obvious to the not-so-tough guy that he’ll be beaten, so why bother fighting? The pecking order remains intact. But if the not-so-tough guy happens to have a gun, he stands a good chance of winning. In this scenario, the introduction of a gun may well lead to more violence."

Capital Punishment

In a death penalty advocate’s best-case scenario, capital punishment could explain only one twenty fifth of the drop in homicides in the 1990’s.