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Cited by 1,152

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 4 of the 4 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not

Open access
Levitt, Steven D·2004·Journal of Economic Perspectives
DOI 10.1257/089533004773563485
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Abstract

Crime dropped sharply and unexpectedly in the United States in the 1990s. I conclude that four factors collectively explain the entire drop in crime: increases in the number of police, increases in the size of the prison population, the waning of the crack epidemic, and the legalization of abortion in the 1970s. Other common explanations for declining crime appear far less important. The factors identified are much less successful in explaining fluctuations in crime in the preceding two decades. The real puzzle is not why crime fell in the 1990s, but rather, why crime did not begin falling earlier.

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Metadata

Authors
Levitt, S. D.
Venue
Journal of Economic Perspectives
Publisher
American Economic Association
Published
2004-02-01
Volume
18
Issue
1
Pages
163-190
ISSN
0895-3309 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1257/089533004773563485
OpenAlex
W2112348462
Cited by
1,152
References
4
FWCI
136.77
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1257/089533004773563485
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Levitt, S. D. (2004). Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not. Journal of Economic Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1257/089533004773563485

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.