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NICOLAE CEAU?ESCU’S ABORTION BAN: Background information on

Romania and the Ceau?escus was drawn from a variety of sources, including

“Eastern Europe, the Third Communism,” Time, March 18, 1966; “Ceausescu

Ruled with an Iron Grip,” Washington Post, December 26, 1989; Ralph

Blumenthal, “The Ceau?escus: 24 Years of Fierce Repression, Isolation and

Independence,” New York Times, December 26, 1989; Serge Schmemann, “In

Cradle of Rumanian Revolt, Anger Quickly Overcame Fear,” New York Times,

December 30, 1989; Karen Breslau, “Overplanned Parenthood: Ceau?escu’s Cruel

Law,” Newsweek, January 22, 1990; and Nicolas Holman, “The Economic Legacy

of Ceau?escu,” Student Economic Review, 1994. / 118 The link between the

Romanian abortion ban and life outcomes has been explored in a pair of papers:

Cristian Pop-Eleches, “The Impact of an Abortion Ban on Socio-Economic

Outcomes of Children: Evidence from Romania,” Columbia University working

paper, 2002; and Cristian Pop-Eleches, “The Supply of Birth Control Methods,

Education and Fertility: Evidence from Romania,” Columbia University working

paper, 2002.

THE GREAT AMERICAN CRIME DROP: As noted earlier, this material is drawn

from Steven D. Levitt, “Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990’s: Four

Factors That Explain the Decline and Six That Do Not,” Journal of Economic

Perspectives 18, no. 1 (2004), pp. 163–90. / 120 James Alan Fox’s “intentional

overstatement”: See Torsten Ove, “No Simple Solution for Solving Violent

Crimes,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 1999.

POLITICIANS WERE GROWING INCREASINGLY SOFTER ON CRIME: This

and a number of related issues are discussed in Gary S. Becker and Guity Nashat

Becker, “Stiffer Jail Terms Will Make Gunmen More Gun-Shy,” “How to Tackle

Crime? Take a Tough, Head-On Stance,” and “The Economic Approach to

Fighting Crime,” all in The Economics of Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997),

pp. 135–44; the chapters were adapted from Business Week articles by the same

authors.

INCREASED RELIANCE ON PRISONS: Concerning the fifteenfold increase in

drug-crime prisoners, see Ilyana Kuziemko and Steven D. Levitt, “An Empirical

Analysis of Imprisoning Drug Offenders,” Journal of Public Economics 88, nos.

9–10 (2004), pp. 2043–66. / 123 What if we just turn all the prisoners loose? See

William Nagel, “On Behalf of a Moratorium on Prison Construction,” Crime and

Delinquency 23 (1977), pp. 152–74. / 123 “Apparently, it takes a Ph.D….”: See

John J. DiIulio Jr., “Arresting Ideas: Tougher Law Enforcement Is Driving Down

Urban Crime,” Policy Review, no. 75 (Fall 1995).

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: For a full report on New York State’s failure to

execute a single criminal, see “Capital Punishment in New York State: Statistics

from Eight Years of Representation, 1995–2003” (New York: The Capital

Defender Office, August 2003), which is available as of this writing at

nycdo.org/8yr.html. More recently, New York’s Court of Appeals found the

death penalty itself unconstitutional, effectively halting all executions. / 125

Executing 1 criminal translates into 7 fewer homicides: See Isaac Ehrlich, “The

Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death,”

American Economic Review 65 (1975), pp. 397–417; and Isaac Ehrlich, “Capital

Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Evidence,” Journal of

Political Economy 85 (1977), pp. 741–88. / 125 “I no longer shall tinker with the

machinery of death”: From Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s dissenting opinion in a

1994 Supreme Court decision denying review of a Texas death-penalty case:

Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 1141(1994); cited in Congressional Quarterly

Researcher 5, no. 9 (March 10,1995). It should be noted that American juries also

seem to have lost their appetite for the death penalty—in part, it seems, because

of the frequency with which innocent people have been executed in recent years

or exonerated while on death row. During the 1990s, an average of 290 criminals

were given the death sentence each year; in the first four years of the 2000s, that

number had dropped to 174. See Adam Liptak, “Fewer Death Sentences Being

Imposed in U.S.,” New York Times, September 15, 2004.

DO POLICE ACTUALLY LOWER CRIME? See Steven D. Levitt, “Using Electoral

Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime,” American

Economic Review 87, no. 3 (1997), pp. 270–90; Steven D. Levitt, “Why Do

Increased Arrest Rates Appear to Reduce Crime: Deterrence, Incapacitation, or

Measurement Error?” Economic Inquiry 36, no. 3 (1998), pp. 353–72; and Steven

D. Levitt, “The Response of Crime Reporting Behavior to Changes in the Size of

the Police Force: Implications for Studies of Police Effectiveness Using Reported

Crime Data,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 14 (February 1998), pp. 62–81.

/ 127 The 1960s as a great time to be a criminal: See Gary S. Becker and Guity

Nashat Becker, The Economics of Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), pp. 142–

43.

NEW YORK CITY'S CRIME “MIRACLE”: The “Athenian period” quote came

from an author interview with former police captain William J. Gorta, one of

CompStat’s inventors. / 128 The broken window theory: See James Q. Wilson

and George L. Kelling, “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety,”

Atlantic Monthly, March 1982. / 130 Bratton hiring more police in Los Angeles:

See Terry McCarthy, “The Gang Buster,” Time, January 19, 2004.

GUN LAWS: Concerning the fact that the United States has more guns than it

has adults, see Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig, Guns in America: Results of a

Comprehensive Survey of Gun Ownership and Use (Washington: Police

Foundation, 1996). / 131 The gun-crime link: See Mark Duggan, “More Guns,

More Crime,” Journal of Political Economy 109, no. 5 (2001), pp. 1086–1114. / 131

Guns in Switzerland: See Stephen P. Halbrook, “Armed to the Teeth, and Free,”

Wall Street Journal Europe, June 4, 1999. / 132 The impotent Brady Act: See Jens

Ludwig and Philip Cook, “Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated with

Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act,” Journal of the

American Medical Association 284, no. 5 (2000), pp. 585–91. / 132 Felons buying

black-market guns: See James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, Armed and

Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (Hawthorne,

N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1986). / 133 The gun-for-psychotherapy swap: See

“Wise Climb-Down, Bad Veto,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1994. / 133 Why

gun buybacks don’t work: See C. Callahan, F. Rivera, and T. Koepsell, “Money

109, no. 5 (2001), pp. 1086–1114.

for Guns: Evaluation of the Seattle Gun Buy-Back Program,” Public Health

Reports 109, no. 4 (1994), pp. 472–77; David Kennedy, Anne Piehl, and Anthony

Braga, “Youth Violence in Boston: Gun Markets, Serious Youth Offenders, and a

Use-Reduction Strategy,” Law and Contemporary Problems 59 (1996), pp. 147–

83; and Peter Reuter and Jenny Mouzon, “Australia: A Massive Buy-back of Low-

Risk Guns,” in Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence, ed. Jens

Ludwig and Philip Cook (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003). / 133

John Lott’s right-to-carry theory: See John R. Lott Jr. and David Mustard, “Right-

to-Carry Concealed Guns and the Importance of Deterrence,” Journal of Legal

Studies 26 (January 1997), pp. 1–68; and John R. Lott Jr., More Guns, Less Crime:

Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1998). / 133 John Lott as Mary Rosh: See Julian Sanchez, “The Mystery of

Mary Rosh,” Reason, May 2003; and Richard Morin, “Scholar Invents Fan to

Answer His Critics,” Washington Post, February 1, 2003. / 133–34 Lott’s gun

theory disproved: See Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III, “Shooting Down the

‘More Guns, Less Crime’ Hypothesis,” Stanford Law Review 55 (2003), pp. 1193–

1312; and Mark Duggan, “More Guns, More Crime,” Journal of Political

Economy

THE BURSTING OF THE CRACK BUBBLE: For a discussion of crack’s history

and particulars, see Roland G. Fryer Jr., Paul Heaton, Steven Levitt, and Kevin

Murphy, “The Impact of Crack Cocaine,” University of Chicago working paper,

2005. / 134 25 percent of homicides: See Paul J. Goldstein, Henry H. Brownstein,

Patrick J. Ryan, and Patricia A. Bellucci, “Crack and Homicide in New York City:

A Case Study in the Epidemiology of Violence,” in Crack in America: Demon

Drugs and Social Justice, ed. Craig Rein-arman and Harry G. Levine (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1997), pp. 113–30.

THE “AGING POPULATION” THEORY: See Steven D. Levitt, “The Limited

Role of Changing Age Structure in Explaining Aggregate Crime Rates,”

Criminology 37, no. 3 (1999), pp. 581–99. Although the aging theory has by now

been widely discounted, learned experts continue to float it; see Matthew L.

Wald, “Most Crimes of Violence and Property Hover at 30-Year Low,” New York

Times, September 13, 2004, in which Lawrence A. Greenfield, director of the

Bureau of Justice Statistics, says, “There is probably no single factor explanation

for why the crime rates have been going down all these years and are now at the

lowest level since we started measuring them in 1973. It probably has to do with

demographics, and it probably has to do with having a lot of very high-rate

offenders behind bars.” / 135 “There lurks a cloud”: See James Q. Wilson,

“Crime and Public Policy” in Crime, ed. James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia (San

Francisco: ICS Press, 1995), p. 507.

THE ABORTION-CRIME LINK: For an overview, see John J. Donohue III and

Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime,” Quarterly

Journal of Economics 116, no. 2 (2001), pp. 379–420; and John J. Donohue III and

Steven D. Levitt, “Further Evidence That Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime: A

Response to Joyce,” Journal of Human Resources 39, no. 1 (2004), pp. 29–49. /

136 Abortion studies in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia: See P. K. Dagg, “The

Psychological Sequelae of Therapeutic Abortion—Denied and Completed,”

American Journal of Psychiatry 148, no. 5 (May 1991), pp. 578–85; and Henry

David, Zdenek Dytrych, et al., Born Unwanted: Developmental Effects of Denied

Abortion (New York: Springer, 1988). / 137 The Roe v. Wade opinion: Roe v.

Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). / 138 One study has shown that the typical child: See

Jonathan Gruber, Philip P. Levine, and Douglas Staiger, “Abortion Legalization

and Child Living Circumstances: Who Is the ‘Marginal Child?’” Quarterly

Journal of Economics 114 (1999), pp. 263–91. / 138 Strongest predictors of a

criminal future: See Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, “Family Factors

as Correlates and Predictors of Juvenile Conduct Problems and Delinquency,”

Crime and Justice, vol. 7, ed. Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (Chicago:

See Susan Sorenson, Douglas Wiebe, and Richard Berk,

“Legalized Abortion and the Homicide of Young Children: An Empirical

Investigation,” 2, no. 1 (2002), pp.

239–56. / See Anindya Sen, “Does

Increased Abortion Lead to Lower Crime? Evaluating the Relationship between

Crime, Abortion, and Fertility,” unpublished manuscript; and Andrew Leigh and

Justin Wolfers, “Abortion and Crime,”

72, no. 4 (2000), pp. 28–30. / See John J.

Donohue III, Jeffrey Grogger, and Steven D. Levitt, “The Impact of Legalized

Abortion on Teen Childbearing,” University of Chicago working paper, 2002. /

See Michael S. Paulsen, “Accusing Justice:

Some Variations on the Themes of Robert M. Cover’s ,”

7, no. 33 (1989), pp. 33–97. /

See Anthony V. Bouza,

(New York:

Plenum, 1990). /

12, no. 3 (1998), pp. 3–20. /

See Glenn W. Harrison, “Assessing Damages for the

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” University of Central Florida working paper, 2004. /

University of Chicago Press, 1986); also, Robert Sampson and John Laub, Crime

in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life (Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press, 1993). / 139 So does having a teenage mother: See

William S. Comanor and Llad Phillips, “The Impact of Income and Family

Structure on Delinquency,” University of California–Santa Barbara working

paper, 1999. / 139 Another study has shown that low maternal education: Pijkko

Rasanen et al., “Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Risk of Criminal

Behavior Among Adult Male Offspring in the Northern Finland 1966 Birth

Cohort,” American Journal of Psychiatry 156 (1999), pp. 857–62. / 139 Infanticide

fell dramatically:

Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy141 Studies of Australia and Canada:

AQ: Journal of Contemporary Analysis141 Many of the aborted baby girls:

142Abortion worse than slavery:

Justice AccusedJournal of

Law and Religion142 Abortion as “the only effective

crime-prevention device”:The PoliceMystique: An

Insider’s Look at Cops, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System142 $9 million to save a spotted owl: See Gardner M. Brown and

Jason F. Shogren, “Economics of the Endangered Species Act,” Journal of

Economic Perspectives142 $31 to prevent another

Exxon Valdez –type spill:

142–43 Body-part price list: Drawn from the state of Connecticut’s Workers’

Compensation Information Packet, p. 27, available as of this writing at

wcc.state.ct.us/download/ acrobat/info-packet.pdf.

5. WHAT MAKES A PERFECT PARENT?

THE EVER CHANGING WISDOM OF PARENTING EXPERTS: Ann Hulbert,

Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children

(New York: Knopf, 2003) is an extremely helpful compendium of parenting

advice. / 148 Gary Ezzo’s “infant-management strategy” and sleep deprivation

warning: See Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, On Becoming Babywise (Sisters,

Ore.: Multnomah, 1995), pp. 32 and 53. / 148 T. Berry Brazelton and the

“interactive” child: T. Berry Brazelton, Infants and Mothers: Difference in

Development, rev. ed. (New York: Delta/Seymour Lawrence, 1983), p. xxiii. /

148 L. Emmett Holt’s warning against “undue stimulation”: L. Emmett Holt, The

Happy Baby (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1924), p. 7. / 148 Crying as “the baby’s

exercise”: L. Emmett Holt, The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for