Rising Crime In The 1990's

In the 1990’s the United States experienced a great drop in crime rates all across America (in cities, suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas). The decline in crime was unexpected, large, and it was widespread geographically and demographically. Many researchers attempted to explain why crime declined in the 1990’s, but it was proven to be a difficult task. According to Zimring (and most other researchers) there are three commonly cited explanations for the crime drop. These are; the criminal justice efficacy, demographics, and economic factors. Researchers examined the Criminal justice efficacy particularly how better policing and increased imprisonment may have lowered crime rates. They also examined demographic shifts, particularly how smaller

Some of the programs which have been studied are comp stat program, increasing police manpower, hotspots policing, broken window, zero-tolerance, community policing, and smart policing. Some of the findings are increasing police manpower did not decrease crime because some studies show that police departments such as San Diego, Seattle, and Dallas had a decrease in crime without increasing their man power. Therefore there is no empirical evidence to suggest that increasing man power would decrease crime. Smart policing was implemented nationally, but it did not fit neatly with the timing of the crime drop and as such does not correlate with any significant effects. Broken windows approach to policing in New York City and five other cities showed that the approach did not work. The New York City Comp stat program or Boston’s Operation Ceasefire affected the homicide trend, which had a modest effect on robbery and homicide rates. Hot Spots Policing showed that reduced crime rather than displacing

Their argument was based on the fact that teenagers, single women, and poor women are more likely to raise disadvantaged children at risk for delinquency and crime. An increased abortion by these women would likely reduce the number of future offenders. Second, abortion gave young women the ability to delay childrearing, a change that may have improved the conditions for their future children, reducing criminality. Third, the timing of legalization of abortion in the 1970s and the scale of subsequent abortion fits with the timing scale of the crime decline in the 1990s. Some researchers disagree with the Abortion Dividend because first, women who abort are actually less likely to have raised at-risk children. Second, the percentage of children born to single women and unmarried teenagers has increased rather than decreasing since the 1970s, and the percentage of birth to African American women remained stable since mid-1960. They have also pointed out that the drop in fertility rate was mostly due to legalization of contraception In the 1960s, and not because of the legalization of