Hacker News Reader

Comment by HWR_14 | Hacker News Reader

> Hasn't crime in the US trended downward for the last 50+ years?

Mostly. There's been a sizeable blip up during the pandemic (it's unknown if that's the cause) and that's led to talking heads talking about "the greatest rise in crime in 50 years", but that's talking about the percent increase year-over-year, and it's been trending down for a while. It's still below the rates it was at in the 1990s, which was lower than the rates in the 1970's and 1980's.

The analogy would be if you owned MySpace stock (I know, it's not public) since 1999. Sure, maybe it shot up 20% this year, but who cares you're still out most of your money.

View on HN

Not to be pedantic, but crime peaked in the late 80’s / early 90’s and has steadily decreased since then (apart from recent spikes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Is it concidence that lead in petrol (gas in the US) was phased out during the 80s that might explain the downward trends in crime?

So many things happened "during the 80s", such a broad correlation is basically meaningless. I have heard some much tighter correlations have been found and some possible causal links, but I never looked into it so I might be misremembering.

It's not based just on "they happened in the 80s in the US". It's an international trend that you see most countries follow as they ban leaded gas.

I would only quibble with it being sizable. In my major city property crime dropped throughout the pandemic and violent crime was down during the beginning of the pandemic but returned to a level higher than pre-pandemic times, which is still quite a bit lower than historic records.

Growing up in 90s many/most politicians ran on a get tough on crime platform. Crime rates naturally fell.

Current trend last the few years is to be soft on crime. So now crime rates are rising.

There is also increasing shift away from the mindset that one has the right to defend oneself. Both as a private citizen and as a police officer.

If someone comes up and pulls a knife on you, and you pull a gun out. The results can be anywhere from being treated as hero to a villain. For sides of the confrontation.

Crime fell nationwide in the 90s after steadily growing since the 60s because of the elimination of leaded gasoline. The evidence is really strong.

Certainly crime rate has nothing to do with putting large numbers of violent people in jail.

Like the speed of a car has to do with how fast it goes.

But isn't the more interesting question how and why the crime rate is the way it is? Anyone who is actually interested in changing the impact crime has on a society has to look long and hard at those questions. Of course many also just take the topic as a political vehicle to reach other goals, that have nothing to do with actually making things better.

Roe v Wade is also cited as a factor because all of those kids aborted in the 70s would have been the neglected kids of the 80s and crims of the 90s.

Doesn't seem likely. When you look at a variety of Europe countries which have a variety of different dates when it comes to loosing / strengthening abortion laws they also saw decreases in crime in the same time period as the US.

I'm going to appeal to authority here. The economists who wrote freakonomics surely controlled for that. They are the ones who published the abortion dropping crime paper.

You misread what I was saying. I am not saying abortion doesn't have an impact, but Roe vs Wade did not. There were a lot of abortions prior to the legalization in the US. I am not positive, but it may have been legal in some states just not nationally (didn't want to look it up to confirm).

This is why the date of legalization of abortion did not seem to have an impact in Europe and also why restrictions on abortion in some countries did not have an impact.

But aren't planned/wanted kids intrinsically more unlikely to be born into families that are able to support them financially and emotionally?

People who decide to get kids will always be more likely to do so when they can actually support them.

People who get kids by accident (or even against their will) will be more likely to put kids into unstable environments.

Kids in unstable environments are more likely to grow into adults that do crime.

One way of avoiding these kids is abortions. But you could also provide stable environments for kids that are actually born (which is very much what we in Europe did). Allowing abortions won't change a lot in a society that already does what it can to support all children and their parents — it however will change a lot in societies without social security.

You misread what I was saying.

I am not saying abortion doesn't have an impact, but Roe vs Wade did not. There were a lot of abortions prior to the legalization in the US. I am not positive, but it may have been legal in some states just not nationally (didn't want to look it up to confirm).

This is why the date of legalization of abortion did not seem to have an impact in Europe and also why restrictions on abortion in some countries did not have an impact.

The “freakeconomics paper” [1] tries to claim abortions Tower substantially after Roe. They don’t have hard data. This is what they offer:

> documented abortions rose sharply in the wake of Roe, from under 750,000 in 1973 (when live births totaled 3.1 million) to over 1.6 million in 1980 (when live births totaled 3.6 million). If illegal abortions were already being performed in equivalent numbers, one would not expect a seven-year lag in reaching a steady state. Moreover, the costs of an abortion — financial and otherwise —dropped considerably after legalization.

You are correct some states were legal earlier. Donohue and Levitt have a section on that in a 2019 follow up paper [2]. Claim: Crime dropped earlier in those states that legalized earlier.

[1] http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittT...

[2] https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_201975.pd...

This is almost certainly false, I have never heard this purported and this was discussed a lot in my economics classes. It almost certainly had to do with Roe v. Wade preventing unwanted births and people being born into situations where they would not be allowed to prosper.

If you have evidence I'd be happy to evaluate it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesi...

The relationship between leaded gasoline and crime has been found consistent in every country that's been looked at, based on when leaded gasoline was legalized and then banned.

Leaded gasoline is still legal in the US and used every day. I watch vehicles burn it from my house every day. So I'm skeptical of any correlation, given that it never happened.

> Leaded gasoline is still legal in the US and used every day

Not in anything like the quantities it used to be when it's use wasn't as restricted as it is now (and, with use dropping, so did blood levels; this has been extensively studied.)

You can buy a plane that uses a piston engine running on leaded gasoline and fly it all day long, as long as you want. You need to stay out of restricted airspace, but that applies to all aircraft. This dumps lead into the atmosphere nonstop while taxi'ing and while in flight. The only limit on this activity is the depth of your wallet.

Really? What vehicles are being made today that use leaded gasoline and where are people buying it? I haven't seen a gas station selling leaded gas in decades now.

Almost every small general aviation aircraft that has a piston engine uses leaded gasoline. There are some alternatives, but the FAA has never mandated a transition.

This is an absolute fairy tale. The problem is it is a commonly shared one in the US.

Recently, a gang of armed assailants broke into an apartment with a man sleeping on a couch. The man was armed with a gun, in line with his second amendment rights. However he didn't even have a chance to defend himself - seeing that the victim was armed, the gang responded by summarily executing him. Despite plenty of evidence and the identities of the attackers being well known to prosecutors, no arrests have been made. I'm speaking of course about Amir Locke. Is it any wonder how the right to defend oneself is being eroded when government sanctioned gangs can commit first degree murder and then escape justice?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com