Well, quite a lot of politicians and pundits seem to think otherwise. It is getting a bit tiresome. Also, I was responding to someone who wanted a citation of the stats.

Freakanomics has a long section on it that contradicts Gladwell and I am inclined to believe the Freakanomics since they back it up with stats.

This isn't scientific but It just seems like the 70's had a very chaotic vibe with a lot of external stuff hitting the US. The economy wasn't strong and we were going into a massive transition (factory -> office). Nixon (scandal & economy) and Carter (personified weak) didn't help a whole lot. A lot of in decline thinking causes a lot of unrest and crime.

I would rank most tough crime laws as a cause not a cure.

I wish the up arrow was bigger and the down arrow was moved after the [link]. It would save a lot of hassle and provide a guidance that up is nicer than down.

For example, Steven Pinker looks into this a little in "The Better Angels of Our Nature", long story short there's nothing conclusive, and a sufficiently motivated person can find reasons to doubt it (e.g., the big drop in crime happened some ten years after the ramp up of incarceration rates, Canada experienced a similar decline in crime over that period without the corresponding increase in prison population), however, Pinker himself thinks that when all is said and done it seems likely that incarceration was one of the reasons. One other contributing factor was a large increase in the size of police forces during Clinton's presidency. On top of that, he argues the culture just for some reason shifted to being less violent.

(I want to also mention that he debunks quite convincingly the theory that the decrease in crime had anything to do with legalizing abortion.)

About this time someone always links to the lead and crime story. And because its a good article I'll link to it now. http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link...

I'm sure there (check the prison union website) is but books like Freakanomics give different reasons (legalized abortions).

A lot of people attribute it to Roe v Wade[1]. Less unwanted babies growing up in environments that lead to a life of crime.

[1] see Freakonomics