Chapter 4

The latest chapter in the book deals with the disappearance of criminals in the nineties. As usual, the other gives us a list of reasons why this might have occurred and analyzes all of the possibilities. Some of his conclusions are more suprising than i thought. For example, a few of the reasons that i believed would have led to a lowering crime rate had no connection with it. Stricter gun laws, the author claims, have nothing to do with this lowering crime rate. he refers to a court ruling that says all you can own a handgun if you have a criminal background. He points out that most criminals wouldn't buy guns from a store to begin with. According to him, the majority of felons in America rely on the underground black market gun trade for their firearms.

The author does make one significant link between abortion and crime. He believes that with abortion legal, crime rates will be severely lowered. Unwanted pregnancies result in unwanted children who are more likely to be abused and mistreated. MOre often than not, these neglected children turn into criminals due to their bad family relations and past. I believe this to be mostly true. The trends throughout history also prove this point. When abortion rates boomed in the seventies, the crime rates were lower in the nineties.

I found this chapter to be enjoyable but not the most interesting piece we've read. Also i didnt completely agree with some parts of his writing. For example, the author claims that the changes in the crack/cocaine market resulted in lower ammounts of crime. I dont understand how he can make that statement, since in the previous chapter he spent several pages describing the corrupt crime ridden life of a chicago crack dealer. But overall, i found this particular passage to be good and i agreed with the majority of it.