Conventional programs tend to be expensive, onerous, and ineffective. Could something as simple (and cheap) as cognitive behavioral therapy do the trick?
As the Supreme Court considers overturning Roe v. Wade, we look back at Steve Levitt’s controversial research on an unintended consequence of the 1973 ruling….
The controversial theory linking Roe v. Wade to a massive crime drop is back in the spotlight as several states introduce abortion restrictions. Steve Levitt and John Donohue discuss their…
…for recent crime trends as well as to determine their permanence. The lower that crime rates plunge, and the more that budgets are cut for crime prevention and crime control…
…legalized abortion on crime. John and Steve talk about guns, the death penalty, the heat they took from their joint research, and why it’s frustratingly difficult to prove truth in…
…the decline in crime that we attribute to legalized abortion, this estimate would have to be about five times bigger. Moreover, for violent crime and property crime, increases in these…
In policing, as in most vocations, the best employees are often promoted into leadership without much training. One economist thinks he can address this problem — and, with it, America’s…
From domestic abusers to former child soldiers, there is increasing evidence that behavioral therapy can turn them around.
When the world went into lockdown, experts predicted a rise in intimate-partner assaults. What actually happened was more complicated….
…crime. Crime rates today are a lot lower than they used to be, but crime still imposes enormous costs on society. In addition to the costs associated with the suffering…
…falling crime, more falling crime just isn’t newsworthy. While the pundits are eager to start explaining the many reasons for this “sharp rise” in violent crime, my view is that…
The U.S. is an outlier when it comes to policing, as evidenced by more than 1,000 fatal shootings by police each year. But we’re an outlier in other ways too:…
Sure, sex crimes are horrific, and the perpetrators deserve to be punished harshly. But society keeps exacting costs — out-of-pocket and otherwise — long after the prison sentence has been…
A host of commenters on my Bill Bennett post get very agitated over the question of “crimes” vs. “the crime rate.” The term “crime rate” implies a denominator, typically “per…
The pandemic has hit America’s biggest city particularly hard. Amidst a deep fiscal hole, rising homicides, and a flight to the suburbs, some people think the city is heading back…
Clementine Jacoby went from performing in a circus to founding a nonprofit that works to shrink the prison population….
It was like the 1990s all over again when the FBI released the latest crime statistics last week. Violent crime fell by five percent; property crime fell by three percent….
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz combs through mountains of information to find advice for everyday life….
…kind of “crime dividend” (or, perhaps, “safety dividend”) should we expect? Decreased crime is of course its own reward. But with crime falling so dramatically across so many dimensions for…
Dubner and his Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt answer your questions about crime, traffic, real-estate agents, the Ph.D. glut, and how to not get eaten by a bear.
Six months ago I blogged about how the media reported the crime statistics released by the FBI at that time. All the headlines screamed that a new crime wave was…
…Steeper Rise From the Los Angeles Times: Violent Crime Rises Again From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Rise in Violent Crimes is Higher than Expected It is official. The next crime wave…
The world is a more peaceful place today that at any time in history — by a long, long shot.
…declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well — CALLER: Well, I don’t think…
Good intentions are nice, but with so many resources poured into social programs, wouldn’t it be even nicer to know what actually works?
The dollar has taken serious hits recently, not only continuing to fall against the euro but being caught even by the Canadian loonie. From the long view, however, the dollar’s…
Why are humans so eager for magic-bullet solutions? Can you explain how a pen works? And how does Angela feel about being forever branded “the grit lady”?…
…that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s reduced crime in the 1990s. The logic is simple: unwanted children have an increased risk of growing up to be criminals, and…
…Doing the instrumental variables estimation has a bigger impact on property crime than on violent crime. All four of the instrumental variables estimates of legalized abortion on property crime are…
In June, NPR’s Planet Money reported on the billion-dollar stash of unused dollar coins piling up at the Federal Reserve. At the time, there were $1.2 billion worth of dollar…
