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Economists say more guns and less regulation caused the crime spike of the ’90s
What caused the spike in America’s murder rate in the late 1980s and early 1990s? And why did it drop so precipitously after? Two new academic papers question the theory that crack cocaine was the culprit. The drug theory posits that dealers used violence to defend their businesses, and users committed crimes to feed their addictions. But the economists behind the new papers say that this can’t fully explain why the spike in crack use was so deadly, or why murders fell in the mid-’90s. “Instead, they argue, a boom in handgun production and possession gave the crack years their fatal character—until new restrictions on firearms reversed the trendlines,” according to The Trace. “What’s striking about the gun market is you get these surges in production,” said economist Geoffrey Williams. “The production booms were followed by surges in killings.” [Alex Yablon / The Trace]
In a working paper, Geoffrey Williams and W. Alan Bartley argue that a “supply shock” of low-priced pistols in the 1980s and early ’90s led to higher levels of gun homicide among young Black men. During those years, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives loosened oversight of the gun industry and a group of Los Angeles-based manufacturers known as the “Ring of Fire” expanded the market for “Saturday Night Specials”: bottom-of-the-barrel firearms. In a separate working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in July, economists William Evans, Craig Garthwaite, and Timothy Moore examine an exception to the crime drop: The murder rate for young Black men remains 25 percent higher than it was before the crack epidemic. The reason, they posit, is the lasting effects wrought by increased access to and demand for firearms during the crack years. [Alex Yablon / The Trace]
Experts have generated a multitude of theories. “The prosperity thesis argues that crime rates fall when economic conditions improve and rise when the economy sours,” writes Neil Howe for Forbes. But although “this reasoning seemed to explain falling crime rates during the economic boom of the late ’90s, it doesn’t explain why crime continued to fall during the recent recession.” A theory that the death penalty deters criminals is demonstrably false, since capital punishment has been in steep decline for two decades while crime rates have continued to fall. “Others credit a larger police presence and improved policing tactics. Yet if this were the main driver, we would expect to see dramatic city-by-city differences based on which cities implemented these new tactics—but we don’t see much variation.” [Neil Howe / Forbes]
A comprehensive study by the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that “over-harsh criminal justice policies, particularly increased incarceration … were not the main drivers of the crime decline.” In fact, “increased incarceration has been declining in its effectiveness as a crime control tactic for more than 30 years. Its effect on crime rates since 1990 has been limited, and has been non-existent since 2000.” More important, the authors conclude, were “various social, economic, and environmental factors, such as growth in income and an aging population.” They also attribute some success to the introduction of data-driven policing. [Oliver Roeder, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, and Julia Bowling / Brennan Center for Justice]
Freakonomics fans are familiar with the abortion theory, which holds that in 1994, when the crime rate started to drop, there were fewer 21-year-olds on the street because 21 years prior, in 1973, abortions became legal under Roe v. Wade. It is one of the few theories that has empirical support from other countries. But there are reasons to doubt: Women did get abortions before Roe, and some were still unable to get them afterward. And in the 1990s, the crime rate went down among many age groups at once, not just among people born in 1973 or later. Crime continued to decline in the 2000s, after the Roe v. Wade generation was out of prime criminal age. [Dara Lind and German Lopez / Vox]
“Historians agree that the crime wave of the 1960s and 1970s had a lot to do with the baby boom: There were more young men than ever before, and young men are the people who commit most crimes,” writes Dana Goldstein for the Marshall Project. “As the boomers aged out of trouble in the early 1980s, crime fell.” But during the period of the crime decline from 1992 to today, there has been no significant decrease in the number of young men. “Some experts believe the growth in the population over the age of 50 has contributed to better public safety, because there are more adults monitoring young people’s behavior,” but this effect is most likely small if it exists at all. Another thesis would attribute a drop in crime to technology such as air conditioning and television, which brought people into their homes. Technology has also made cars more difficult to steal, and the introduction of debit cards means people carry less cash. [Dana Goldstein / Marshall Project]
One of the more popular theories in recent years attributes crime to lead. The ban on lead paint and leaded gasoline, awareness about lead in water, and general lead abatement efforts all decreased lead exposure particularly among children born from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. This correlates strongly to the cohort of children who hit peak criminal age in the 1990s and 2000s. The “data suggests that these specific cohorts were less likely to get arrested for crime,” according to Vox. “Given that there’s a body of psychological research tying lead exposure to more aggressive behavior, it’s likely reduced lead exposure played a role in reducing arrests and crime.” And unlike other theories, evidence also comes from other developed countries, which have had parallel experiences. [Dara Lind and German Lopez / Vox]
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