The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the Country

Commenters debated why violent crime appears to be falling nationwide. Some argued prosecution and reporting changes drive the numbers (erkt), while others dismissed non-prosecution as irrelevant to homicide counts, saying deaths are hard to hide (hn_throwaway_99). A psychological/social theory was offered by bm3719, who claimed modern alienation and technology reduce interpersonal targets for violence and supply substitutes for emotional needs, producing a “social neutering.” Downrightmike attributed declines to fewer unwanted births after legal abortion, and JumpCrisscross and others raised the classic lead-exposure hypothesis, with JumpCrisscross citing studies estimating lead explains a portion of the decline. Commenters also argued about the economics and norms of childrearing: chanakya and beaned contended children are comparatively affordable but raising them to 1950s norms is a different choice.

Opinion divided sharply over evidence and causality. Some called for hard data and criticized speculative claims as “crazy” (rayiner, bdangubic), while others accused elites of promoting wrong epistemologies (monideas). Predictions varied too: OutOfHere warned that abortion bans could reverse declines in conservative states, and multiple commenters questioned nostalgia for past childrearing or asked for rigorous analyses rather than vibes.