Here’s the abstract of a paper in press by economist Ted Joyce, followed by Joyce’s cogent explanation of why it’s important to keep harping on this subject.

A Simple Test of Abortion and Crime
Ted Joyce
Baruch College and Graduate Center
City University of New York
and
National Bureau of Economic Research

Forthcoming in Review of Economics and Statistics

A Simple Test of Abortion and Crime

Abstract

I replicate Donohue and Levitt’s results for violent and property crime arrest rates and then apply their data and specification to an analysis of age-specific homicide rates and murder arrest rates. The coefficients on the abortion rate have the wrong sign for two of the four measures of crime and none is statistically significant at conventional levels. In the second half of the paper, I present alternative tests of abortion and crime that attempt to mitigate problems of endogeneity and measurement error. I use the legalization of abortion following the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade in order to exploit two sources of variation: between-state changes in abortion rates pre and post Roe, and cross-cohort differences in exposure to legalized abortion. I ind no meaningful association between abortion and age-specific crime rates among cohorts born in the years just before and after abortion became legal.

I. Introduction

The debate as to whether legalized abortion lowers crime leaped from academic journals to mainstream discourse with the huge success of Freakonomics.1 In the Chapter titled, “Where Have All the Criminals Gone?” Levitt and Dubner summarize academic work by Levitt and coauthor John Donohue, which shows that a one-standard deviation increase in the abortion rate lowers homicide rates by 31 percent and can explain upwards of 60 percent of the recent decline in murder.2 If one accepts these estimates, then legalized abortion has saved more than 51,000 lives between 1991 and 2001, at a total savings of $105 billion. But the policy implications go beyond crime. If abortion lowers homicide rates by 20 to 30 percent, then it is likely to have affected an entire spectrum of outcomes associated with well-being: infant health, child development, schooling, earnings and marital status. Similarly, the policy implications are broader than abortion. Other interventions that affect fertility control and that lead to fewer unwanted births—contraception or sexual abstinence—have huge potential payoffs. In short, a causal relationship between legalized abortion and crime has such significant ramifications for social policy and at the same time is so controversial, that further assessment of the identifying assumptions and their robustness to alternative strategies is warranted.

The New York Times more or less sets the agenda for the rest of the news media. If the NYT decides a story is fit to print, much of the the rest of the press will soon decide, what do you know!, that the topic deserves coverage. But if a tree falls in the forest and the NYT doesn’t cover it … This means the NYT has a particular responsibility to avoid giving in to conflicts of interest, which they have clearly succumbed to over the last two years in their refusal to report on any of the controversies swirling around their star columnist turned blogger Steven D. Levitt.

Nobody cares more about children than the jolly fat guy, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) has just showed why he has to be acknowledged as being a very close second.

During the Aug. 29 airing of “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” Durbin took off the gloves and let reporter Christine Romans know in no uncertain terms that he has had it with unsafe goods coming into this country from China (read the entire transcript).

We’re about to launch the holiday season, the purchase of toys by families all across America. And there’s some real misgivings, as I’ve said over and over. Families don’t want to play Chinese roulette when they go into a toy department.

Durbin, who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee for the Consumer Products Safety Commission CPSC), then took aim at this understaffed agency that is charged with making sure little Billy and Susie don’t put their eyes out playing with goodies manufactured by our Chinese friends and allies:

. . . they (CPSC) have to take a much more aggressive attitude when it comes to dealing with these products. And I don’t like the responses that I’ve heard out of this commission over the last several weeks. It is the kind of weak approach which really doesn’t give confidence to consumers across America, who count on their government to make sure that products are safe.

It’s obvious that inspecting one out of every 100 shipments is not good enough. And this commission has to wake up to reality. Either they should do the job or get out of town.

Whew! Go get ‘em, Dick! No more Mr. Nice Guy!

Durbin said Americans are willing to pay more for products that don’t make them or their kids glow in the dark, but I wonder, given his support for immigration legislation calling for bringing more cheap foreign workers to this country, just how long will it be before many Americans simply won’t be able to afford much of anything regardless of where it is made?

Francisco Santos is a Mexican teenager living in Duluth, Georgia who has tuberculosis and won’t take his medicine. So far he’s only given it to four people that we know of, and the cruel Yankee authorities have put him in jail. Where is the ACLU when you need them? They say his status as a minor will complicate a deportation process that can take months, anyhow, but actually, by the time he gets through all the appeals, he’ll be 18 anyway.

My Way News - Teen Jailed Over TB to Face Deportation

Aug 30, 7:43 AM (ET)

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) - Officials started taking steps to deport a Mexican teenager who was jailed after refusing treatment for tuberculosis.

Francisco Santos, 17, has acknowledged to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that he is in the country illegally, Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said Wednesday.

County health officials jailed Santos last week after he refused treatment for an active, contagious case of tuberculosis and threatened to travel to Mexico, a move that could expose more people to the potentially fatal disease. Santos, who lives in Duluth, has since started taking medicine, but he will remain jailed at least until a Sept. 5 hearing.

Conway said Santos’ condition and age could further complicate a deportation process that can take months. Because he is a minor, officials would have to make sure he has family in Mexico or that the Mexican government would take a role.

Four people who had been living with Santos have also tested positive for tuberculosis, health officials said Wednesday.[More]

Dan Horn writes in the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Immigration agents raided a poultry packaging facility in Fairfield, Ohio, early Tuesday and arrested scores of illegal immigrants who were working there.

The raid, one of the largest of its kind this year in Greater Cincinnati, is part of a two-year investigation into the hiring practices at Chicago-based Koch Foods Inc.
Immigration officials described Koch Foods as an “egregious violator” of U.S. immigration laws, which means the company is suspected of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

Now, the Bush administration has a long history of non-enforcement to make up for to even equal the rather dismal record of the Clinton administration. I rather doubt the fines involved here will be much more than a slap on the wrist-and I doubt the US government will really have the will to follow this policy through unless we see some serious shakeups in the US political leadership.

As noted several times in these parts, Mexican kidnapping diversity is spreading rapidly into American communities along with the rather limited benefits of salsa and enchiladas. Just as predicted, the increased incidence of kidnapping in Tijuana has moved north.

The pre-trial hearing currently unfolding in San Diego is revealing fascinating details of Mexican crime culture. Abductee and Mexican businessman Eduardo Gonzalez Tostado (shown) testified that he was held captive for eight days after being lured to a Chula Vista house with the hope of a sexual liaison. Bad choice, bub.

Amusingly, his pregnant wife hung up the phone when he called with the ransom demands, figuring it was tom foolery to cover up his staying out all night with another woman. The guy evidently has a history.

But the headline in Monday’s Orange County Register was more serious — Victim: Kidnappers unafraid to commit Mexican-style crime in U.S.

Eduardo Gonzalez Tostado, 32, haltingly recounted his captors’ threats and demands for money in the first hours after a woman lured him to a home in a quiet cul-de-sac the night of June 8 with the promise of sex. Instead, he was jumped, beaten and shot with a stun gun by at least four men who blindfolded and bound him.

Gonzalez was finally rescued by an FBI SWAT team who tracked a suitcase full of money with a homing device to the hideout. Of the six accused perps, there are four Mexican citizens, one Cuban and one U.S. citizen. They could be sentenced to life in prison.

That’s crime diversity in San Diego these days.