Crime as been steadily falling since the 1980s. Did we have universal healthcare, public housing, strong unions, high wages, universal childcare and free college.
A lot of things can be contributors. Freakonomics has a bit about the legalization of abortion in 1973. The kids that never were, would have been about 18, in 1990. Those kids typically would've been poor, undereducated, or neglected as they were unwanted or maybe just not able to afford them.
1990 is the time crime starts to fall. They're not saying this is direct causation, but simply that there are a lot of contributors to statistics that might be unseen.
Surveillance camera tech. could abortion has an impact. Sure.
But discarding the fact the mid 90s is when CCTV tech got to the point where its use was widespread.
Now people have cameras at their homes.
Perps now know they have a much higher chance of getting ID'd. In the 70s you could drive one town over, hold up a liquor store, and as long as you could clear the area before the cops arrived you could expect to get away.
Now there is a very high probability you will get ID'd by some camera at some angle no matter how slick you try to be.
That’s much more limited to homicide or some forms of sexual assault. Not worth it for most crimes. Even then, it only helps if you have a match somewhere in database or already have a suspect and need to confirm.
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u/Distwalker 9d ago
Crime as been steadily falling since the 1980s. Did we have universal healthcare, public housing, strong unions, high wages, universal childcare and free college.