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http://i.imgur.com/S5QjFxC.png http://i.imgur.com/S5QjFxC.png Does anyone know of any research showing that the decline in murder counts is primarily due to ha

• protomyth 13y ago
  I'm sure there (check the prison union website) is but books like Freakanomics give different reasons (legalized abortions).
• lostlogin 13y ago
  About this time someone always links to the lead and crime story. And because its a good article I'll link to it now. http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link...
• clarky07 13y ago
  A lot of people attribute it to Roe v Wade[1]. Less unwanted babies growing up in environments that lead to a life of crime. [1] see Freakonomics
• pfedor 13y ago
  For example, Steven Pinker looks into this a little in "The Better Angels of Our Nature", long story short there's nothing conclusive, and a sufficiently motivated person can find reasons to doubt it (e.g., the big drop in crime happened some ten years after the ramp up of incarceration rates, Canada experienced a similar decline in crime over that period without the corresponding increase in prison population), however, Pinker himself thinks that when all is said and done it seems likely that incarceration was one of the reasons. One other contributing factor was a large increase in the size of police forces during Clinton's presidency. On top of that, he argues the culture just for some reason shifted to being less violent. (I want to also mention that he debunks quite convincingly the theory that the decrease in crime had anything to do with legalizing abortion.)