…the bloody crime scene. These demonstrations of family loyalty trigger significant media interest, perhaps in part because those who cooperate with law enforcement are often called “snitches” and might be…
I have blogged repeatedly about the propensity of the media to distort official crime reports to make it appear as if things are getting inexorably worse. (You can see past…
If you are driving and kill a pedestrian, there’s a good chance you’ll barely be punished. Why?
Okay, how’s this for an example of crime prevention: transcendental meditation. Several years ago in Washington D.C., 3,000 people got together to meditate and … yes, drove drown crime throughout…
…another cost associated with the meat-processing industry: increased crime. Writing for the American Sociological Association, Amy Fitzgerald finds a spill-over effect from the violent work of the slaughterhouse into the…
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is one politician who can credibly claim that he is truly responsible for reducing crime, at least if you believe a new study by economists Gordon…
…crime statistics there, all crimes are rare. China certainly feels safe. We walked the streets in rich areas and poor and not for a moment did I ever feel threatened….
If you are driving and kill a pedestrian, there’s a good chance you’ll barely be punished. Why?
Stephen Dubner, live on stage, mixes it up with outbound mayor London Breed, and asks economists whether A.I. can be “human-centered” and if Tang is a gateway drug….
He’s an economist who studies even weirder things than Steve. They discuss whether economics is the best of the social sciences, and why it’s a good idea to get a…
He’s been an Arctic scientist, a sports journalist, and is now a best-selling author of science books. His latest, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, makes the argument…
…in the way of his storytelling. DiNardo also spends two pages asserting that we misrepresented a paper by Christian Pop-Eleches on the impact of banning abortion in Romania. DiNardo writes…
…if any individual black teen’s propensity for crime was unchanged over this time period, the aggregate amount of black-teen crime would have risen by 15 percent. In other words, in…
When Stephen Dubner learned that Dallas–Fort Worth will soon overtake Chicago as the third-biggest metro area in the U.S., he got on a plane to find out why. Despite getting…
…“automated, detailed crime forecasts tailored to each of the department’s 21 area stations would be streamed several times a day to commanders,” with consolidating information from detectives, witnesses, suspects, and…
How psychologist Dan Gilbert went from high school dropout to Harvard professor, found the secret of joy, and inspired Steve Levitt’s divorce….
When security cameras and facial recognition tools fail, law enforcement investigators fall back on a witness’s memory and an artist’s hand. Zachary Crockett’s nose was a little bigger than that….
Levitt and Dubner field questions from the public and hold forth on everything from dating strategies and rock-and-roll accordion music to whether different nations have different economic identities. Oh, and…
…and Tekin, one reason for this conclusion is that abused children tend to engage in crime earlier than the non-abused. Currie and Tekin explain: Starting to engage in criminal behavior…
When the crime statistics for 2006 were released, the news media had no trouble declaring that the next big crime wave had hit (even though violent crime had just ticked…
In our second round of FREAK-quently Asked Questions, Steve Levitt answers some queries from listeners and readers.
…new paper for NBER) shows how an increasingly decentralized government, coupled with very real monetary incentives for local officials, leads to eco-crime. Indonesia contains one of the largest pieces of…
How does bail work — and who’s really paying? Zachary Crockett follows the money….
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes (No. 39!), we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to…
What do Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Malcolm Gladwell have in common? Are interesting theories more significant than true ones? And what has been keeping Angela up at night? Plus:…
Hank Green is an internet phenomenon and a master communicator, with a plan to reform higher education. He and Steve talk about the video blog that launched Hank’s career, the…
Freakonomics has gotten people in trouble before. In 2005, a student was kicked out of a classroom for citing the book’s abortion/crime argument. Another reader claimed he was asked to…
…Music], only on a shorter time frame: The CCM boom of the late ’80s/early ’90s is one of the legalized abortions of pop music, leading to the low-crime Hot AC…
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes, we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to talk —…
