[anonym29]

Violent crime plummeted throughout the 90s because abortions was legalized in 1973, 17-27 years before 1990 and 2000, respectively, roughly coinciding with the early adulthood period where a vast majority of criminal offenses are committed, the offender having the freedom of an adult without the fully formed prefrontal cortex of one yet.

The fetuses that were aborted were overwhelmingly from socioeconomic demographics (e.g. poverty, single mother households) where they would've been statistically far more likely to become criminals, so by allowing that generation to be aborted, we effectively aborted (for the first time) a large chunk of an entire generation of people that would've been statistically overrepresented among criminals, entering their peak criminal years right when Bill Clinton was president.

[rsynnott]

This is likely a myth; crime dropped all across the developed world in a similar timeframe, but dates of legalisation of abortion likely don't line up. One popular speculation is the phasing out of leaded petrol, but really this one seems to remain a case of "shrug, dunno".

[tsunamifury]

The world is complex and most phenomenons are high dimensional.

It’s very likely: - criminal potential populations were reduced - economics lead to stable options for more individuals in the late 90s - lead was removed - a myriad of other improvements in society that generally led to Less crime

[leviathant]

An assault weapons ban went into effect in 1994, the number of deaths from mass shootings fell, and the increase in the annual number of incidents slowed down. Any guesses as to what trends in firearm related deaths looked like when the ban was allowed to expire in 2004?

[HWR_14]

Freakanomics made that argument, but there is very little statistical evidence abortions were the cause. For one thing, abortions were legal in states like California and New York, which also saw crime drops.

[actionfromafar]

That's very bad for the Prison Economy. :-/

[anonym29]

Don't worry, we tripled incarceration rates between 1980 and 2000, particularly of nonviolent drug offenders, to make up for the difference. This is America, after all, we can't just let the businesses fail!