
Sorry, Malcolm Gladwell: NYC’s Drop in Crime Not Due to Broken Window Theory  - jamesbritt
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/02/sorry-malcolm-gladwell-nycs-drop-in-crime-not-due-to-broken-window-theory
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lutusp
A quote: "He added that he has no idea why the crime dropped—only that it had
nothing to do with broken windows."

One theory -- and it's only a theory -- is that the increased availability of
birth control methods resulted in fewer unwanted children, which in turn
produced fewer criminals:

[http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-
wh...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-
you-believe/)

Obviously this isn't science (no meaningful controls), and it could be a
meaningless correlation between two unrelated things. But it's disingenuous
for the author to say he has "no idea" why the crime rate dropped.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is yet more junk science by the same (correction, a different) author.
There's no meaningful correlation, at best there's a sort of coincidental
timing relation, but once you dig deeper you find it doesn't actually make any
sense.

The almost certain cause of the crime reduction is the crack epidemic. It
first caused a massive boom in violent crime then it leveled out to a bit
lower than previous levels. This could be because communities finally got
tired of gang violence, or it could be that gangs had simply finished
consolidating their territory and then the reduction in crack use reduced
revenues and reduced incentives for new gang violence. Also, the economy
improved, which tends to reduce crime rates.

If you look at the data you see that it wasn't just homicide counts that
spiked, the crime rate per capita for different age groups went up then down
in the critical teen to mid-20s demographic. That has nothing to do with
abortion rates whatsoever.

Edit: Look at this graph and tell me where the abortion rate kicks in?
[http://www.justice.gov/archive/mps/strategic2000_2005/oage.g...](http://www.justice.gov/archive/mps/strategic2000_2005/oage.gif)

How is it that the impact of abortion on birth rate kicks in simultaneously
for people 30, 20, and 15 years old?

Also, apologies for the authorship confusion on my part. I have actually read
both books, and while occasionally quite interesting both do suffer from being
extremely intellectually shallow, which might explain my mistake.

~~~
tadfisher
Yet another statistical correlation is the removal of lead from the
environment, mostly from paint and gasoline:

[http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-
li...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-
gasoline)

