Donohue and Levitt, Foote and Goetz

            I first read Donahue and Levitt’s article, which relates to argument that was presented in the chapter we read in Freakonomics last week. The begin by stating popular reasons that may have been responsible for crime rates in the 1990’s to decrease a noticeable amount. Then they say that it was the legal battle between Roe v. Wade and the courts decision to legalize abortion throughout the country. Unlike the chapter in Freakonomics, Donohue and Levitt offer a model that includes data they gathered over time, and they focus on abortion numbers as the main explanatory variable. What they concluded was that abortion is responsible for nearly 50% of the decrease in crime rate during the period they collected data during. Basically, Donohue and Levitt provided statistics and analyzed them to provide support for the chapter we read in Freakonomics.

            In Foote and Goetz’s article, they are responding and criticizing Donohue and Levitt’s article written about the relationship about abortion and crime rate. They criticize the model they use along with many other factors that they say skewed the results of Donohue and Levitt. Basically, Foote and Goetz make their own model and find that there is no statistical significance between abortion and crime rate.

            So we can conclude that depending on the model one uses it will give you two completely different results for something that is comparing the relationship between two of the same variables. It is interesting how different results one can compute by measuring them slightly different. Looking at these two articles gives us the impression that there are always two sides to the story.

Where Have All the Criminals Gone?

In chapter 4 of Freakonomics, “Where Have All the Criminals Gone?” Levitt and Dubner discuss the relationship between increased crime rates and legalizing abortion amongst different states. They explain that without the option to get an abortion it will result in “undesired” births. These “undesired” births are resulting in higher crimes rates because they believe that these children are more violent because of who their parents may be. When different states began legalizing abortion these states also saw criminal activity diminish, thus implying that these “undesired” children were violent.

This chapter was one of the more interesting chapters we have read this semester. I think this relationship is very interesting, although I do believe legalizing abortion would contribute to a decrease in crime rates, I think many other factors can contribute to decrease in crime rates. Depending on your political views and your stance on the legalization of abortion, you may or may not consider abortion an illegal crime. If you do consider abortion an illegal crime then the crime rate never went down.

So I really believe this chapter should be more focused on how some may view the legalization of abortion, and then dive into the relationship between crime rates and abortion.