Abortion = lower crime?

[PLAYER57832]

Which link?

This one? http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/ ... me2004.pdf

If you're looking for large budgets over many years with large staffs, then after aggregation, Levitt's overview of a good chunk of the literature should surpass your requirements. =P


It's been well over a year since I've read it, but many of the comments, questions, and criticisms ITT were handled pretty well by Levitt. Of course, I'd be crazy to expect most of the people ITT to value the time spent in reading it. It's so much easier to blindly stumble about and yell at each other.*


*I'm not implying you act like this. You win the award for Most Reasonable Skepticism ITT. Congrats.

Some of their reasons for decreased crime seems a little dodgy. I'm talking about the More prisons reason. Here in Canada we saw a similar decrease in crime and yet we didn't increase our prison populations in a similar manner (there was steep, +20 prisoners per 100k Canadians, increase from 1980-85 and then prison populations stayed relatively stable at around 110 per 100k Canadians, from 85-99 ).

Actually the increased police conclusion seems suspect as well since in Canada we actually decreased the number of police per capita over the same period and saw similar crime reductions.

It's complex; there's very likely to be more than 2 forces which play on the crime rates of Canada.

Also, cross-country analysis becomes difficult as crimes are categorized differently, policing strategies may be different, and there's that ambiguous culture factor which is difficult to mathematically model to show its particular effects on crime.

True I don't claim my breife analysis has anything resembling the weight of the study. It's simply curious that these supposedly strong factors are absent from Canada when Canada has seen a crime reduction as well.

More prisons absolutely do not reduce crime in the US, because laws are very unequal in which crimes result in time behind bars. I believe those factors are more steady in Canada. For example, you just don't have the huge minority population and part of the historical skewing in the Us is that blacks (in particular, but also hispanics, I believe) are given higher sentences for the same crimes, never mind that crimes more likely to be committed by blacks (particularly crack cocain use, some gang offenses) begin with higher mandatory sentences and such.

but the real question is not so much "can prisons reduce crime?" (they absolutely can), but is that the most EFFECTIVE means of reducing crime.. effective per cost AND just plain effective. Do prisons reduce crime more than other things (regardless of cost). By either measure, most prisons are failures.

There is a segment of the population.. for simplicity I will call them hardened criminals and insane criminals, who just plain cannot be in society without causing harm. Many pedophiles, mass murderers, some gang people (leadership mostly), etc, etc.. these people have to be locked up for our general safety. BUT, other criminals are better dealt with in other ways, once you get beyond the "we gotta make them PAY" mentality. In truth, its we who really wind up paying the most.

[PLAYER57832]

To answer the poll question, instead of the title, one big reason for the decrease in crime was the economy. This is not quite intuitive, because we were already seeing an economic slide. But, for theft to work, people have to need things and have money to pay for them. In the 90's most people who wanted things just put them on the credit card. Other people just did without, having most of the "stuff" they needed/wanted. That meant petty theft, in particular was far less profitable and therefore lessoned signficantly.

Some say that you can add in some minor impacts of three strikes laws, though I am not sure locking someone away for stealing a pair of garden gloves or toking a joint is really a good thing.. even if technically it does result in a "less crime". AND.. the fact that police have more and mroe had to focus on immigration issues. (note.. the first I am absolutely sure of, the last two are more tenuous assertions. I have heard them given, but have also heard disagreement).

[Baron Von PWN]

Which link?

This one? http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/ ... me2004.pdf

If you're looking for large budgets over many years with large staffs, then after aggregation, Levitt's overview of a good chunk of the literature should surpass your requirements. =P


It's been well over a year since I've read it, but many of the comments, questions, and criticisms ITT were handled pretty well by Levitt. Of course, I'd be crazy to expect most of the people ITT to value the time spent in reading it. It's so much easier to blindly stumble about and yell at each other.*


*I'm not implying you act like this. You win the award for Most Reasonable Skepticism ITT. Congrats.

Some of their reasons for decreased crime seems a little dodgy. I'm talking about the More prisons reason. Here in Canada we saw a similar decrease in crime and yet we didn't increase our prison populations in a similar manner (there was steep, +20 prisoners per 100k Canadians, increase from 1980-85 and then prison populations stayed relatively stable at around 110 per 100k Canadians, from 85-99 ).

Actually the increased police conclusion seems suspect as well since in Canada we actually decreased the number of police per capita over the same period and saw similar crime reductions.

It's complex; there's very likely to be more than 2 forces which play on the crime rates of Canada.

Also, cross-country analysis becomes difficult as crimes are categorized differently, policing strategies may be different, and there's that ambiguous culture factor which is difficult to mathematically model to show its particular effects on crime.

True I don't claim my breife analysis has anything resembling the weight of the study. It's simply curious that these supposedly strong factors are absent from Canada when Canada has seen a crime reduction as well.

More prisons absolutely do not reduce crime in the US, because laws are very unequal in which crimes result in time behind bars. I believe those factors are more steady in Canada. For example, you just don't have the huge minority population and part of the historical skewing in the Us is that blacks (in particular, but also hispanics, I believe) are given higher sentences for the same crimes, never mind that crimes more likely to be committed by blacks (particularly crack cocain use, some gang offenses) begin with higher mandatory sentences and such.

but the real question is not so much "can prisons reduce crime?" (they absolutely can), but is that the most EFFECTIVE means of reducing crime.. effective per cost AND just plain effective. Do prisons reduce crime more than other things (regardless of cost). By either measure, most prisons are failures.

There is a segment of the population.. for simplicity I will call them hardened criminals and insane criminals, who just plain cannot be in society without causing harm. Many pedophiles, mass murderers, some gang people (leadership mostly), etc, etc.. these people have to be locked up for our general safety. BUT, other criminals are better dealt with in other ways, once you get beyond the "we gotta make them PAY" mentality. In truth, its we who really wind up paying the most.

Actually we do have a similar history. In fact ours is probably worse, Aboriginal make up about 20% of the Canadian prison population despite only being around 3% of the population. Granted we don't have similarly large minority groups .

[BigBallinStalin]

Also, cross-country analysis becomes difficult as crimes are categorized differently, policing strategies may be different, and there's that ambiguous culture factor which is difficult to mathematically model to show its particular effects on crime.

True I don't claim my breife analysis has anything resembling the weight of the study. It's simply curious that these supposedly strong factors are absent from Canada when Canada has seen a crime reduction as well.[/quote]

It could be from the rise of private security services. Such services grew significantly since the 1990s in the US, and I'm not sure when it took off in Canada, but it could explain why crime lowers as levels in police and prisons decrease.

[Lootifer]

Also dont underestimate the non-linearity of the situation.

The US has a MASSIVE amount of crime. This huge volume is easier to be made smaller by the shear fact theres so much of it (think economies of scale type of thing). Therefore the driving factors have seemingly bigger impact.

If you reduce the base crime levels (essentially what you are doing when you look away from the US and at another country) then the co-efficients on the factors are likely to drop (non-linearity).

Of course this doesnt address BVPs main concern... But remember the 10 factors identified in the report arent the only crime reducing factors...

[nietzsche]

I read (and by read I mean listened to) Freakonomics and it makes a good case on abortion being the main cause of declining crime numbers.

No I did not go to the library of congress to check all the journals, but I trust the economist, I don't remember his name.

Abortion is a good idea, and the reasons that stop us from rationally using it is irrational belief. Too sad.

I fully support Johnny Rockets' idea, 10,000 for disconnecting the lower plumbing in idiots is a bargain.

[saxitoxin]

I will also dispute this and do some basic leg work on wikipedia.

Crime rate: This appears to be a little hazy, due to differences in recording crime rates. For instance the Canada includes vehicular crimes as well as fraud which is not included in the US stats. Then there is the problem of different classifications of crimes (what in the USA is 1 crime "aggravated assault" is three different crimes in Canada).

IIRC the Nationamaster data is from the UNICJR which converts national statistics to a uniform standard. The UNICJR data is accurate for comparing nation-to-nation crime trends given the 192 different reporting standards in 192 different countries.

• That said, I understand it's core to the worldview of many people to imagine their nations are paradises of tranquility relative to the U.S. and so, when statistics to the contrary are presented, all sorts of caveats and exemptions and conditionals are applied to the statistics to discount them as invalid. U.S. crime rates have consistently been the lowest in the industrial world in almost every category, outside of the glaring but rare category of homicide. Colloquially, Vancouver has always struck me as horrifyingly unsafe relative to San Francisco.* A real shithole with a fanatically policed tourist core (kind-of a rug covering the dirt). So I have no observational reason to believe the data doesn't mirror street-reality.

no credits to your account

* Granted, this may be impacted by my own frame of reference as I'm well-liked in The Tenderloin where I regularly enjoy sauntering about with confidence in my short-shorts and mesh tank-top accompanied by my girlfriends enjoying the various clubs and bars and am often greeted with humorous catcalls from homosexual Latino gangsters like "Hey Saxi! Nice legs!"

As for point 2. Do you have any evidence to suggest this is the case?

I decided to grab some crime stats from two states. 1 with 3 strikes and one without. For no particular reason I chose Texas and New York.

Texas (three strikes law)

Crime rate Index 1990 78.27/ 100,000 residents
2010 42.33/ 100,000

Change over ten yrs :-35.94/ 100,000
Sauce: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm


New York State (no three strikes)

Crime rate index. 1990 63.36/ 100,000 residents
2010 23.33/ 100,000

Change over 10 years -40.03/100,000

So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state.

Randomly selecting two states to evaluate and casting that as a national trend is disingenuous. When I "randomly" selected two states I got opposite results as you.

Washington
1993: 312,793 / 5,225,000 --> year of adoption of habitual offender law
2003: 312,814 / 6,131,298

Oregon
1993: 174,812 / 3,032,000
2003: 180,369 / 3,564,330

You never stated where you got your numbers just put out the statement. If that is where you are getting your statement I will accept that Canada has more non violent crime.

I referenced it in my subsequent post addressed to natty_dread to which I thought you were replying. The U.S. has a 4% incidence of crime versus Canada's 12% incidence of crime, New Zealand's 10% incidence of crime, Finland's 10% incidence of crime or the UK's 11% incidence of crime. This data is from the eighth survey - 2002 - but is mirrored in the tenth survey of 2006, the most recent date for which data is available (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and- ... stems.html). This is accordingly shocking to non-Americans who note unusually high levels of homicide in the U.S. without reference to other crime categories or acceptance of the fact that homicide is a statistically anomalous crime, even in countries with high levels of it.

If broken down by type, this data also shows Canada has higher incidences of violent assault. The United Kingdom also - not surprisingly given the pandemic levels of knifings - has a rate of assault 2 1/2 times that of the United States. New Zealand has higher incidences of rape, which is not surprising as it's common knowledge that country has culturally de-stigmatized rape to the point that getting raped has become a rite-of-passage for Zealanders.

On your second point with the two states. I'm not sure what you think this proves as both state's crime rates per capita have decreased at similar rates. Washington shedding 1 crime a year more than Oregon is hardly conclusive. (washington 59 per 100,00 in 93- 51 per 100 000 in 03, Oregon 57 per 100000 in 93 - 50 per 100 000 in 03). I remain unconvinced that repeat offender laws are an effective means of crime reduction and that this is not some broader national change.

It doesn't prove - nor was intended to prove - anything except that randomly selecting two states and using data from that selection to make an affirmative statement "So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state." to infer that habitual offender laws actually increase crime is a sophistry.

[BigBallinStalin]

Saxi, you're a sophistry.

[Baron Von PWN]

I will also dispute this and do some basic leg work on wikipedia.

Crime rate: This appears to be a little hazy, due to differences in recording crime rates. For instance the Canada includes vehicular crimes as well as fraud which is not included in the US stats. Then there is the problem of different classifications of crimes (what in the USA is 1 crime "aggravated assault" is three different crimes in Canada).

IIRC the Nationamaster data is from the UNICJR which converts national statistics to a uniform standard. The UNICJR data is accurate for comparing nation-to-nation crime trends given the 192 different reporting standards in 192 different countries.

• That said, I understand it's core to the worldview of many people to imagine their nations are paradises of tranquility relative to the U.S. and so, when statistics to the contrary are presented, all sorts of caveats and exemptions and conditionals are applied to the statistics to discount them as invalid. U.S. crime rates have consistently been the lowest in the industrial world in almost every category, outside of the glaring but rare category of homicide. Colloquially, Vancouver has always struck me as horrifyingly unsafe relative to San Francisco.* A real shithole with a fanatically policed tourist core (kind-of a rug covering the dirt). So I have no observational reason to believe the data doesn't mirror street-reality.

no credits to your account

* Granted, this may be impacted by my own frame of reference as I'm well-liked in The Tenderloin where I regularly enjoy sauntering about with confidence in my short-shorts and mesh tank-top accompanied by my girlfriends enjoying the various clubs and bars and am often greeted with humorous catcalls from homosexual Latino gangsters like "Hey Saxi! Nice legs!"

As for point 2. Do you have any evidence to suggest this is the case?

I decided to grab some crime stats from two states. 1 with 3 strikes and one without. For no particular reason I chose Texas and New York.

Texas (three strikes law)

Crime rate Index 1990 78.27/ 100,000 residents
2010 42.33/ 100,000

Change over ten yrs :-35.94/ 100,000
Sauce: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm


New York State (no three strikes)

Crime rate index. 1990 63.36/ 100,000 residents
2010 23.33/ 100,000

Change over 10 years -40.03/100,000

So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state.

Randomly selecting two states to evaluate and casting that as a national trend is disingenuous. When I "randomly" selected two states I got opposite results as you.

Washington
1993: 312,793 / 5,225,000 --> year of adoption of habitual offender law
2003: 312,814 / 6,131,298

Oregon
1993: 174,812 / 3,032,000
2003: 180,369 / 3,564,330

You never stated where you got your numbers just put out the statement. If that is where you are getting your statement I will accept that Canada has more non violent crime.

I referenced it in my subsequent post addressed to natty_dread to which I thought you were replying. The U.S. has a 4% incidence of crime versus Canada's 12% incidence of crime, New Zealand's 10% incidence of crime, Finland's 10% incidence of crime or the UK's 11% incidence of crime. This data is from the eighth survey - 2002 - but is mirrored in the tenth survey of 2006, the most recent date for which data is available (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and- ... stems.html). This is accordingly shocking to non-Americans who note unusually high levels of homicide in the U.S. without reference to other crime categories or acceptance of the fact that homicide is a statistically anomalous crime, even in countries with high levels of it.

If broken down by type, this data also shows Canada has higher incidences of violent assault. The United Kingdom also - not surprisingly given the pandemic levels of knifings - has a rate of assault 2 1/2 times that of the United States. New Zealand has higher incidences of rape, which is not surprising as it's common knowledge that country has culturally de-stigmatized rape to the point that getting raped has become a rite-of-passage for Zealanders.

On your second point with the two states. I'm not sure what you think this proves as both state's crime rates per capita have decreased at similar rates. Washington shedding 1 crime a year more than Oregon is hardly conclusive. (washington 59 per 100,00 in 93- 51 per 100 000 in 03, Oregon 57 per 100000 in 93 - 50 per 100 000 in 03). I remain unconvinced that repeat offender laws are an effective means of crime reduction and that this is not some broader national change.

It doesn't prove - nor was intended to prove - anything except that randomly selecting two states and using data from that selection to make an affirmative statement "So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state." to infer that habitual offender laws actually increase crime is a sophistry.

I didin't make that inference you have made it. I was just pointing out that a non-repeat offender state saw its crime rate drop faster than the state with the repeat offender laws. This seems to draw into question your assertion that repeat offender laws were responsible for the decrease in crime. So far I've seen no evidence to back up that claim you made earlier.

If repeat offender laws reduce crime we should see that in the stats. States with such laws should be consistently outperforming states without them. Yet the states we have looked at have comparable decreases in crime over the same period. If I felt like wasting allot of time I could go and punch in the data for all states with Repeat offender laws and without repeat offender laws and give you an average. Though really the onus is on you to provide something resembling evidence.

IIRC the Nationamaster data is from the UNICJR which converts national statistics to a uniform standard. The UNICJR data is accurate for comparing nation-to-nation crime trends given the 192 different reporting standards in 192 different countries.

This isn't really true. The UNICJR has done little analysis of the data they have simply collected the responses of the participating nations. All they have done is ask the nations whether their laws are consistent with the UN definition and then double checked to ensure data is internally consistent. So their data is little more than a survey. They haven't, nor do they claim to, gone through the data and ensured the responses are comparable. In fact they have this warning for people using the data.

• . Users should note that the statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in countries, or the different methods of offence counting and recording. Consequently, the figures in these statistics, and their use in particular as a basis for cross-national comparison, must be approached with some caution.

There is a perfect example of this if you look at the comments in the meta data as to what is considered assault in the Canada and USA entries.

Canada lists these crimes as being counted for assault.

• Total Assault includes (simple) assault, assault with a
  weapon/causing bodily harm, aggravated assault, unlawfully causing
  bodily harm, discharge firearm with intent, assault against peace
  public officer, criminal negligence causing bodily harm and other
  assaults. Major Assault includes assault with a weapon/causing bodily
  harm and aggravated assault. Simple Assault is the least serious form
  of assault and includes pushing, slapping, punching and face‐to‐face
  verbal threats. Aggravated Assault involves wounding, maiming,
  disfiguring or endangering the life of someone

Whereas the American statistics includes

• Definition of aggravated assault: "an unlawful attack by one person
  upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily
  injury." It includes attempts with a weapon

So the Canadian stats include a whole medley of crimes (such as slapping and threats) which while still crimes are not as serious as the american definition of aggravated assault, and yet are listed in the same table in the survey. The result is a seemingly inflated tally for Canada, unless you understand that the survey was not meant for comparative purposes and merely as a way to collect the data into one place.

I know you will dismiss my criticisms of your post as a mere attempt to protect my world-view from statistics so really I'm probably just wasting my time, however I hate to see someone post a source and then not give them the courtesy of checking out their source to make sure it says what they think it says.

[Lootifer]

That data is weird Saxi, but thanks for the link nonetheless

[oss spy]

Correlation is the exact same thing as causation, DUH! Everyone knows that!


Just so you know, only 370 Americans were killed in the Gulf War.

[PLAYER57832]

Of course this doesnt address BVPs main concern... But remember the 10 factors identified in the report arent the only crime reducing factors...

In fact, they are not even necessarily the primary causes.

Among other issues. having an idiot (druggie, deadbeat, etc, etc) for a parent tends to reduce one's chances for success, but those things are found across all races and, even economic levels.

A heavy sense of entitlement leads kids to grow up to be abusers of others -- be it raiding pension funds, deciding its OK to just ignore safety regulations and pollution rules or deciding its OK to rob someone directly.

[saxitoxin]

I will also dispute this and do some basic leg work on wikipedia.

Crime rate: This appears to be a little hazy, due to differences in recording crime rates. For instance the Canada includes vehicular crimes as well as fraud which is not included in the US stats. Then there is the problem of different classifications of crimes (what in the USA is 1 crime "aggravated assault" is three different crimes in Canada).

IIRC the Nationamaster data is from the UNICJR which converts national statistics to a uniform standard. The UNICJR data is accurate for comparing nation-to-nation crime trends given the 192 different reporting standards in 192 different countries.

• That said, I understand it's core to the worldview of many people to imagine their nations are paradises of tranquility relative to the U.S. and so, when statistics to the contrary are presented, all sorts of caveats and exemptions and conditionals are applied to the statistics to discount them as invalid. U.S. crime rates have consistently been the lowest in the industrial world in almost every category, outside of the glaring but rare category of homicide. Colloquially, Vancouver has always struck me as horrifyingly unsafe relative to San Francisco.* A real shithole with a fanatically policed tourist core (kind-of a rug covering the dirt). So I have no observational reason to believe the data doesn't mirror street-reality.

no credits to your account

* Granted, this may be impacted by my own frame of reference as I'm well-liked in The Tenderloin where I regularly enjoy sauntering about with confidence in my short-shorts and mesh tank-top accompanied by my girlfriends enjoying the various clubs and bars and am often greeted with humorous catcalls from homosexual Latino gangsters like "Hey Saxi! Nice legs!"

As for point 2. Do you have any evidence to suggest this is the case?

I decided to grab some crime stats from two states. 1 with 3 strikes and one without. For no particular reason I chose Texas and New York.

Texas (three strikes law)

Crime rate Index 1990 78.27/ 100,000 residents
2010 42.33/ 100,000

Change over ten yrs :-35.94/ 100,000
Sauce: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm


New York State (no three strikes)

Crime rate index. 1990 63.36/ 100,000 residents
2010 23.33/ 100,000

Change over 10 years -40.03/100,000

So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state.

Randomly selecting two states to evaluate and casting that as a national trend is disingenuous. When I "randomly" selected two states I got opposite results as you.

Washington
1993: 312,793 / 5,225,000 --> year of adoption of habitual offender law
2003: 312,814 / 6,131,298

Oregon
1993: 174,812 / 3,032,000
2003: 180,369 / 3,564,330

You never stated where you got your numbers just put out the statement. If that is where you are getting your statement I will accept that Canada has more non violent crime.

I referenced it in my subsequent post addressed to natty_dread to which I thought you were replying. The U.S. has a 4% incidence of crime versus Canada's 12% incidence of crime, New Zealand's 10% incidence of crime, Finland's 10% incidence of crime or the UK's 11% incidence of crime. This data is from the eighth survey - 2002 - but is mirrored in the tenth survey of 2006, the most recent date for which data is available (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and- ... stems.html). This is accordingly shocking to non-Americans who note unusually high levels of homicide in the U.S. without reference to other crime categories or acceptance of the fact that homicide is a statistically anomalous crime, even in countries with high levels of it.

If broken down by type, this data also shows Canada has higher incidences of violent assault. The United Kingdom also - not surprisingly given the pandemic levels of knifings - has a rate of assault 2 1/2 times that of the United States. New Zealand has higher incidences of rape, which is not surprising as it's common knowledge that country has culturally de-stigmatized rape to the point that getting raped has become a rite-of-passage for Zealanders.

On your second point with the two states. I'm not sure what you think this proves as both state's crime rates per capita have decreased at similar rates. Washington shedding 1 crime a year more than Oregon is hardly conclusive. (washington 59 per 100,00 in 93- 51 per 100 000 in 03, Oregon 57 per 100000 in 93 - 50 per 100 000 in 03). I remain unconvinced that repeat offender laws are an effective means of crime reduction and that this is not some broader national change.

It doesn't prove - nor was intended to prove - anything except that randomly selecting two states and using data from that selection to make an affirmative statement "So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state." to infer that habitual offender laws actually increase crime is a sophistry.

I didin't make that inference you have made it. I was just pointing out that a non-repeat offender state saw its crime rate drop faster than the state with the repeat offender laws. This seems to draw into question your assertion that repeat offender laws were responsible for the decrease in crime. So far I've seen no evidence to back up that claim you made earlier.

If repeat offender laws reduce crime we should see that in the stats. States with such laws should be consistently outperforming states without them. Yet the states we have looked at have comparable decreases in crime over the same period. If I felt like wasting allot of time I could go and punch in the data for all states with Repeat offender laws and without repeat offender laws and give you an average. Though really the onus is on you to provide something resembling evidence.

It's clear and obvious that was the inference you were making when you based a holistic assessment on the validity of habitual offender laws on a comparison of Texas and California and then said "So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state."

• In any case, there's ample information showing a relation between crime rates and habitual offender laws. It wasn't necessary to list this at the outset of the thread because the basis for the topic of the thread when barackattack started was a look at one piece of large data followed by wild speculation on what factors impacted that data. But, since you asked, here's a study from the the George Mason economics department that found a 17-20% decrease in felony arrest rates among "second strike" offenders in California: http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/ThreeStrikes.pdf.
  
  Because, as I said, there's ample information supporting this conclusion I can post ample studies if this isn't enough.

Because this has become a complex-quoted sub-thread, I will - similarly - succinctly and easily dismiss the second part of your post in a subsequent comment I'll make later.

[Baron Von PWN]

It's clear and obvious that was the inference you were making when you based a holistic assessment on the validity of habitual offender laws on a comparison of Texas and California and then said "So crime has actually fallen at a more rapid rate in the non- three strikes state than the three strikes state."

• In any case, there's ample information showing a relation between crime rates and habitual offender laws. It wasn't necessary to list this at the outset of the thread because the basis for the topic of the thread when barackattack started was a look at one piece of large data followed by wild speculation on what factors impacted that data. But, since you asked, here's a study from the the George Mason economics department that found a 17-20% decrease in felony arrest rates among "second strike" offenders in California: http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/ThreeStrikes.pdf.
  
  Because, as I said, there's ample information supporting this conclusion I can post ample studies if this isn't enough.

Because this has become a complex-quoted sub-thread, I will - similarly - succinctly and easily dismiss the second part of your post in a subsequent comment I'll make later.

Didn't crime fall more rapidly in New York though? was my statement incorrect? I made no broader conclusion just pointed out that between those two states the non-three strikes state saw more success at crime reduction.

How does that fit into the conclusion that habitual offender laws reduce crime? Is it possible that such laws are not necessary and there are other means? I'm just trying to understand how a state without such a supposedly potent crime fighting measure saw such significant crime reductions.

Thank you for posting the study. I will certainly look into it time permitting.

I look forward to your subsequent post.