Reply #36: Data sources [View All]

[Time for change]

As I note in my original post, under the "evidence" section, my first sentence makes note of the fact that there was not enough information presented in this chapter to make a full and independent evaluation of the theory. And by the same token, there was little information on the sources of the data.

I would have liked to see more actual numbers and information on sources than I did, and that is certainly the biggest weakness of the chapter. However, I keep in mind the fact that this book was written for a popular audience, not for scientists. That would not excuse sloppy inferences, of course. But I don't feel that Levitt was guilty of sloppy inferences -- he actually presented a great deal of information on how his inferences were made -- but rather only of failing to present enough information on sources and detailed numbers to allow a scientific reader to come to his/her own independent conclusions. That failure of course is the standard for books that are written for popular audiences, as this was. Authors often feel (and remember that this was co-authored by a journalist) that in order to make their book readable for a lay audience they have to lighten up a bit on the amount of data and sources that they present. So I would never discount a theory based on this fact alone, although it does cause me to have at least some doubts about what Levitt wrote about this.

Nevertheless, I still found the chapter to be quite convincing, for several reasons, many of which I have discussed, but some which I haven't.

You mention the conflation between unwanted pregancy and being poor. As noted previously, Levitt presents a number of risk factors for children growing up to become criminals, in addition to being unwanted, including living in a poor family, one parent family, and having a teenage mother with little or no education. I know enough about public health, and I have read enough on this particular subject, that I don't need Levitt to present his sources to know that all of these factors present both a serious risk to the child's future and increase the likelihood that a pregnant mother will want an abortion and will obtain one if it is accessible. "Crime & Human Nature" by James Q. Wilson, is one good source with a wealth of information on the subject.

I don't look at this as being conflation so much, but rather the fact that all these factors are related. There is no question that a preponderence of abortions (not all of course) are performed on women who have these characteristics.

This of course should in no way be taken as an offending remark to poor and single women. Women who are single, poor, young, and uneducated often have very good reasons for not having a child. The fact that they choose to have an abortion in such circumstances, IMO, is often a wise decision, based on their intuitive knowledge that they do not have the material and emotional resources at that time to be an effective parent.

With regard to the question of whether or not the crime statistics that Levitt used were questionable and could have been based on "creative policing" -- I doubt that very much. Remember, the discussion had to do with violent crime, especially murder. Almost certainly these statistics come from official federal records. I doubt very much that the precipitous and large decline in murder during the 1990s was an artifact of "creative policing".