Third Freakonomics Response

            Steven Malanga offers harsh criticism to Levitt’s book, Freakonomics. He contends that Levitt makes too many hasty generalizations in arguments. He is especially critical in chapter four, when Levitt makes the argument that the drop in the crime rates in the 1990s are because of legalized abortion in years prior. Malanga is very critical of this point, saying it’s not abortion, but more police, and better policing tactics. Malanga is correct in his contentions. He brings up the fact that Levitt makes too many hasty generalizations, and that he ignores evidence brought up against him. The real reason for the drop in abortion rate is the increase of police, and innovation in policing strategies.  

            Levitt’s big argument throughout chapter four is that the legalization of abortion is what caused the drop in crime in the 1990s. His rationale behind this is quite simple. Poor people are typically the one’s who would raise criminals, and they are also the people who could not afford illegal abortions prior to the legalization. Thus it must be that because poor people can get abortions, fewer criminals will be born, and the crime rate will surely drop. To prove this further he discusses all the other ideas about what may have caused the drop in the crime rate. He investigated everything from increased reliance of prisons, to a stronger economy. He was able to refute all but two reasons- increased number of police, and more innovative policing strategies. Levitt will even concede to these points being drops in the crime rate. On page 124, Levitt writes, “The policing trend was put in reverse, whit wide scale hiring in cities across the country…the hiring of additional police accounted for roughly 10 percent of the crime drop.” Then he writes about new innovative policing strategies employed by the NYPD, saying they would account for roughly 18 percent of the crime drop. Then he contends that the remaining 72 percent of the crime drop was caused by the legalization of abortion. It would seem to make sense, but if one looks closer the holes in Levitt’s logic become clear.

            Malanga does not agree with Levitt’s theories on the drop in the crime rate. According to Malanga the drop in the crime rate can not be caused by the legalization of abortion, and to prove his point he brings in some counter studies. First Ted Joyce argues that the there was a more rapid drop in homicides by a group of people too old to be affected by the legalization of abortion, meanwhile, those who were affected by the legalization of abortion committed more homicides. By Joyce’s findings the legalization of abortion wouldn’t have done anything, the people in that age group who were supposed to have fewer criminals in it were committing more homicides. This is the first flaw of Levitt’s logic; he disregards new studies that would contradict his own. The next attack on Levit’s logic comes from John Lott and John Whitley. They have a new study that suggests that the legalization of abortion actually leads to more illegitimate births, and it would actually lead to more crime. Again we can see major flaws in Levitt’s logic. The reason we look to these new studies instead of Levit’s is because they are newer and more relevant. They had access to more information than Levitt did when he wrote Freakonomics. Even if you don’t buy into these new studies, Levitt would still fail to bring in any real evidence showing the direct link between abortion and crime rates. His only logic is that poor people raise criminals, and abortion would reduce that, thus lowering the crime rate, but the problem there is he is putting down an unjustifiable blanket statement. He doesn’t have any empirical evidence to back himself up. He does show the connection between poor people and how it is an environment that raises criminals, but he fails to show how exactly more legalizing abortion means that only poor people will be the ones to get these abortions, and not how it could be in other social classes. In general there are just too many flaws in Levitt’s logic, and the new counter evidence, backed by empirical evidence, is too strong of a rebuttal.

            Levitt also discounts the evidence on policing, he says they only make up about 27 percent of the crime drop, but he may be a little mixed up with his numbers here. According to Malanga, if you compare New York, who had a huge increase in the number of officers, and the employed innovative police strategies, to other cities in the 1990s who did not, like Chicago, you can see that crime rate went down in New York, but it actually went up in Chicago, and it also went up in other major cities. This would lead to one to wonder, if abortion is legal everywhere in the country, why is there only a crime drop in New York? The answer is quite simple; it had nothing to do with abortion. It must have been the police force. We can only accept Levitt’s argument that abortion was able to reduce the national crime rate if we can see the trend in all major cities under similar conditions. The problem is we can’t see the trend in other cities. The crime rate went up; Levitt only looked at New York which had the unaccounted variable of police force. We can’t buy into Levitt’s abortion article because it only takes a look at one city and disregards everything else. You can, however, buy into the fact that it was police force innovation, because in New York, unlike other cities, the police force was increased, and in New York, unlike other cities, the crime rate went down.

            Levitt’s argument may sound very convincing. On the outside it appears to have sound logic. Poor families raise criminals, thus a legalization of abortion would account for the decrease in crime levels in the 1990s. However, there are faults in his logic. He discounts recent studies that show how abortion may actually raise more criminals, and how the legalization of abortion wouldn’t help the crime rate at all. Then he makes hasty generalizations that the police force only accounted for a small fraction of the crime drop, but the neglects the other cities that had raises in crime, which would be consistent with the two studies brought in by Malanga. The evidence is staked against Levitt. He made a false claim, and he didn’t have enough evidence to back it up, so we can’t accept it as fact. Malanga brings up good points, and he has stronger evidence.