WHERE HAVE ALL THE CRIMINALS GONE?

My regular (almost) daily blog will return later this week. We have some technical issues. READ ON:

Try not to construe this as an endorsement of abortion policies in the U.S. But I do think the following thesis is very intriguing and worth a discussion.

The stats in today's blog were gleaned from the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. These stats come from simple cause and effect and are therefore mathmatically relevent.

In 1966, Nicolae Ceausescu made abortion illegal in Romania, a country that had one of the most liberal abortion policies in the world. Also, all contraception and sex education was banned. Compared to Romanian children born just a year earlier, the contingent of children born after the abortion ban would do worse in every measurable way: they would test lower in school, they would have less success in the labor market, and they would also prove much more likely to become criminals.

In 1989, Ceausescu met a violent death. It should not be overlooked that his demise was precipitated in large measure by the youth of Romania - a great number of whom, were it not for his abortion ban, would never have been born at all.

Think of the Romanian abortion story as a reverse image of the American crime story. The point of overlap was on Christmas Day of 1989 when Nick learned the hard way - with a bullet to the head - that his abortion ban had much deeper implications than he knew.

On that day, crime was just about at its peak in the United States. In the previous fifteen years, violent crime had risen 80 percent. When the crime rate began falling in the early 1990s, it did so with such speed and suddenness that it surprised everyone. In the mid to late '90s, teenage murder rates dropped by 50% and crime of all categories was the lowest it had been in over 35 years.

The Clinton Administration was quick to take credit by touting his police hiring initiative, tougher gun control in the form of the Brady Bill and gun buybacks, along with a strong economy.

What hasn't been widely reported, for all the politically correct reasons, is the impact of Roe v. Wade in 1973. Many criminals that were to be, were never born.

Indeed, where have all the criminals gone? Let's talk!

JD.