Maybem, but in NYC history, and feel free to look at the numbers. When economy is good, crime has always been lower. Worse crime was in the 1970's when NYC economy was in the pits

Right, but if you look even further back, the crime rates started rising quickly in the 60s, precisely when the economy was booming. The high crime rates of the 70s didn't just materialize within a few years. It was part of a longer trend.

There are too many "anomalies" that counter that statement.

We were already saturated with crime in the early 80s. The city economy steadily improved, to the point where we had a real-estate hit in the late 80s, followed by a quick recovery into the 90s.

Yet, all during that time, crime across the board got steadily worse.

^ So if it's not economic, what is it?

The 80's was a big drug decade.

Indeed. And the crack epidemic later in the decade was a huge crime issue.

According to Freakonomics, the single biggest factor contributing to the drop in crime over the last decade is the legalization of abortion in 1973. In other words, many of those people who otherwise were the most likely to grow up in broken families and turn to crime were never born.

This factor has been demonstrated to be more statistically significant than any other, including increase in police presense, different police tactics, gun control, state of the economy, etc.

Well, let's be clear about something, since people are throwing out answers to two different questions:

1) What causes crime rates to rise?

2) What causes crime rates to fall?

The health of the economy is not a statistically significant factor in either of these scenarios. Levitt - an economist (and author of Freakonomics) - notes that a one percent drop in the unemployment rate causes about a one percent drop in property crimes, but no drop in violent crimes. Think about it this way: when a crime has a financial incentive (like robbery), the economy can play a contributing role. But most homicides, rapes, and other violent crimes don't have financial incentives, thus they're unaffected.

It's safe to say that black markets in drugs and guns are tied into a significant chunk of violent crimes, and may be viewed as "causative" factors. This makes it plausible to conclude that crack was responsible for both an increase in crime, when the business was good, and a decrease, when business got worse. But for most crimes, you can't assign a statistical variable to what motivates the behavior - things like being involved in a gang, growing up in a violent neighborhood, having a stronger tendency to get into fights, etc. These are sociological questions.

Factors that you can put numbers on, which, depending on whether they're on the rise or fall, are not causative per se, but what I'd call "enabling." These are: prosecution/incarceration rates; abortion rates; police hiring. For all three, data analysis has shown significant, negative correlation, which means: when the rates go up, there is a corresponding decrease in crime.

Re: Abortion = lower crime rates

A guess ^^^ of questionable merit -- and impossible to prove.

^^ maybe, but Levitt does a pretty good job of trying..there is a lot of circumstantial evidence if not hard p[roof provided in the book.. if nothing else, it is thought-provoking.