# Why has the government lost prestige since 1964? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 24, 2012, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937 "2012-05-24T11:17:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/61 "2012-05-24T19:19:34Z")
Haven’t you ever noticed the Lizard People tend to be, shall we say, more well tanned than other lizard folks? Yeah… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/62 "2012-05-24T19:34:24Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Watergate and Vietnam ended long ago. If you don’t want to discuss them, you shouldn’t have asked a question to which they are plainly a huge part of the answer. That would have made much more sense than asking about what happened after 1964 and then trying to ignore Vietnam and Watergate, not to mention the turmoil of the civil rights movement and a host of other major events, so we could focus on crime committed by black people and the concerns of conservative white voters. Vietnam and Watergate were a long time ago, but they were formative experiences for a very large generation of people, and luckily that kind of thing is not soon forgotten. Anyway your chart speaks for itself, and so does the accompanying article with the headings “Blame Nixon and stagflation” and “Blame the recession.” Trust in the government was close to 80 percent around 1965. Things in Vietnam got worse and worse despite the goverment’s assertions that it was winning the war. That situation that continued to get worse under Nixon and which deteriorated even further after Watergate came to light, and by the early '80s you had Carter presiding over a weak economy and with a trust percentage in the mid or high 20s. The trends became better after that through the Reagan years and the economic growth of the '90s, peaking after people rallied around the flag following September 11th. A year and a half later the U.S. invaded Iraq, which a lot of the public disliked, and that war and the Afghanistan war got less and less popular as they dragged on and their rationales were questioned, and then you have the current economic situation. That analysis leaves out a lot, but it least addresses the topic and the material you linked to in your OP. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/63 "2012-05-24T19:44:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > If you don’t want to discuss them, you shouldn’t have asked a question to which they are plainly a huge part of the answer. That would have made much more sense than asking about what happened after 1964 and then trying to ignore Vietnam and Watergate, not to mention the turmoil of the civil rights movement and a host of other major events, so we could focus on crime committed by black people and the concerns of conservative white voters. > > Vietnam and Watergate were a long time ago, but they were formative experiences for a very large generation of people, and luckily that kind of thing is not soon forgotten. Anyway your chart speaks for itself, and so does the accompanying article with the headings “Blame Nixon and stagflation” and “Blame the recession.” Trust in the government was close to 80 percent around 1965. Things in Vietnam got worse and worse despite the goverment’s assertions that it was winning the war. That situation that continued to get worse under Nixon and which deteriorated even further after Watergate came to light, and by the early '80s you had Carter presiding over a weak economy and with a trust percentage in the mid or high 20s. The trends became better after that through the Reagan years and the economic growth of the '90s, peaking after people rallied around the flag following September 11th. A year and a half later the U.S. invaded Iraq, which a lot of the public disliked, and that war and the Afghanistan war got less and less popular as they dragged on and their rationales were questioned, and then you have the current economic situation. That analysis leaves out a lot, but it least addresses the topic and the material you linked to in your OP. Since the election of Ronald Reagan the prestige of the government has usually fluctuated in response to fluctuations in the economy. Nevertheless, I cannot understand why it declined from 1992 to 1994. The unemployment rate was declining, and the country was recovering from a recession that began during the administration of George H.W. Bush. The initial response to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq was positive. It was only when it became obvious that the mission had not been accomplished that the prestige of the government declined. Three years into the Obama administration the unemployment rate is still higher than it was when he was inaugurated. That has hurt the government, and the Democrats, although I believe the Republicans, rather than the president, are to blame for high unemployment. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/64 "2012-05-24T20:30:29Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > The overall crime rate peeked during 1980 at 5,950.0. The rate of violent crime peeked at 1991 at 758.1. The decline since can be largely attributed to the tripling of the prison population. Actually, it is much more likely that we can thank the aging of the population. Given the enormous numbers of people incarcerated for fairly innocuous drug crimes _vs_ the fact that crime rates tend to follow the population trends of 15 - 35 year old males, the incerceration rates are merely an indictment of a hostile and fearful society and have nothing to do with actually lowering crime. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/65 "2012-05-24T20:46:17Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/66 "2012-05-24T21:04:07Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, it is much more likely that we can thank the aging of the population. Given the enormous numbers of people incarcerated for fairly innocuous drug crimes _vs_ the fact that crime rates tend to follow the population trends of 15 - 35 year old males, the incerceration rates are merely an indictment of a hostile and fearful society and have nothing to do with actually lowering crime. That kind of thinking is a reason white blue collar workers abandoned the Democratic Party during the 1980s and became Republicans. The aging of the population is one of the factors behind the decline in the crime rate. Every analysis I have been able to find on the internet credits the increase in the prison population. > **[US crime rate is down: six key reasons](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0524/US-crime-rate-is-down-six-key-reasons)** > > The crime rate fell last year across America, across all categories. Here, criminologists cite the key factors, which include better policing. > **[America's serious crime rate is plunging, but why?](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/21/america-serious-crime-rate-plunging)** > > Sociologists have offered explanations including abortion laws, a fall in crack use and – most contentiously – longer sentences [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576345553135009870.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576345553135009870.html) ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/67 "2012-05-24T21:18:42Z")
Republicans blamed the stagflation of the 1970s on Keynesian economic policies, and credited Reagan’s tax cuts for ending it. Actually the stagflation was caused by increases in the price of oil which followed the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Republicans do not want to acknowledge that because they do not want to admit that foreigners have considerable control over the U.S. economy. They blame Keynesian economic policies because they never like them. Jimmy Carter was unfairly blamed for the inflation that ended his presidency. If he had been re elected inflation would have declined after 1982, and he would have received the credit. The Reagan counter revolution would never have happened. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/68 "2012-05-24T21:58:54Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > That kind of thinking is a reason white blue collar workers abandoned the Democratic Party during the 1980s and became Republicans. The aging of the population is one of the factors behind the decline in the crime rate. Every analysis I have been able to find on the internet credits the increase in the prison population. > > [http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0524/US-crime-rate-is-down-six-key-reasons](http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0524/US-crime-rate-is-down-six-key-reasons) > > [America's serious crime rate is plunging, but why? | Chris McGreal in Washington | The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/21/america-serious-crime-rate-plunging) > > [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576345553135009870.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576345553135009870.html) Every one of those articles is an opinion piece that offers multiple possible reasons for the decline in crime without actually asserting a “real” reason and without actually providing genuine evidence to support any specific cause. As to “white blue collar workers” abandoning the Democratic Party for “that kind of thinking,” I will note that the majority of the people I know in that particular demographic continue to believe that crime is getting worse, despite a decline that started over twenty years ago. If they don’t believe the reasons, it might be because they are more motivated by ignorance and fear than by facts. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/69 "2012-05-24T22:50:12Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Every one of those articles is an opinion piece that offers multiple possible reasons for the decline in crime without actually asserting a “real” reason and without actually providing genuine evidence to support any specific cause. > > As to “white blue collar workers” abandoning the Democratic Party for “that kind of thinking,” I will note that the majority of the people I know in that particular demographic continue to believe that crime is getting worse, despite a decline that started over twenty years ago. If they don’t believe the reasons, it might be because they are more motivated by ignorance and fear than by facts. If one does not want to believe that a course of action will achieve the desired goal one can always convince oneself that will not. Many liberals simply do not like the idea of inflicting suffering on poor men who have committed serious crimes, especially if the the poor men are black. Nevertheless, the continuing decline in the crime rate seems to discredit liberal theories about the causes of crime. If poverty causes crime, why does not the present increase in poverty lead to an increase in crime? Why do many countries with much more poverty, like India, have lower crime rates? Your condescending attitude toward white blue collar workers is recognized by them, and resented. For economic reasons many of them have to live in or near dangerous neighborhoods. The experience of crime leads them to exaggerate the likelihood of it. While white blue collar workers do indeed fear crime, this fear is not based on ignorance. Usually it is based on their experience, and the experience of friends and relatives. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/70 "2012-05-24T23:48:45Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Your condescending attitude toward white blue collar workers is recognized by them, and resented. For economic reasons many of them have to live in or near dangerous neighborhoods. The experience of crime leads them to exaggerate the likelihood of it. While white blue collar workers do indeed fear crime, this fear is not based on ignorance. Usually it is based on their experience, and the experience of friends and relatives. I don’t have a condsescending attitude toward them. I have a recognition that those of my acquaintance are quite willing to be led by fear into ignorance. They are willing to argue that crime is going up despite over twenty years of evidence. As to where they live, I have not lived in downtown Detroit in over thirty years. My acquaintances do not even live in the inner ring suburbs of Detroit or Cleveland, but out in exurbia and rural areas where I live. Their fears are not based on reality–theirs or anyone else’s. You appear to approach the same issues with the same problems. You have already been shown that the U.S. and Canada are seeing similar drops in crime rates while only one of them has a drastic increase in incarceration and you simply ignore the information and go looking for blogs and opinions pieces to support your views despite the fact that even your own citatations fail to support your views. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/71 "2012-05-25T00:06:17Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I don’t have a condsescending attitude toward them. I have a recognition that those of my acquaintance are quite willing to be led by fear into ignorance. They are willing to argue that crime is going up despite over twenty years of evidence. > As to where they live, I have not lived in downtown Detroit in over thirty years. My acquaintances do not even live in the inner ring suburbs of Detroit or Cleveland, but out in exurbia and rural areas where I live. Their fears are not based on reality–theirs or anyone else’s. > > You appear to approach the same issues with the same problems. You have already been shown that the U.S. and Canada are seeing similar drops in crime rates while only one of them has a drastic increase in incarceration and you simply ignore the information and go looking for blogs and opinions pieces to support your views despite the fact that even your own citatations fail to support your views. In 1980 the prison population in the United States was 315,974. In 2000 the prison population in the United States was 1,428,187. [http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/lawenforcement/punishment.pdf](http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/lawenforcement/punishment.pdf) In 1980 the crime rate in the United States per 100,000 inhabitants was 5,950.0. In 2010 the crime rate in the United States per 100,000 inhabitants was 3,345.5. > **[United States Crime Rates 1960 t0 2019](https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm)** > > United States crime statistics, United States , United States rape, United States murder, United States property crime, United States crime index, United States violent crime, violent crime in State, United States burglary, United States vehicle... The increase in the prison population has been one of the few social experiments since the New Deal that has worked. Social reform and social welfare spending did not work. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/72 "2012-05-25T00:56:04Z")
Read [_Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus,_](http://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Goldwater-Unmaking-Consensus/dp/1568584121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337907262&sr=8-1) and [_Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America,_](http://www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-President-Fracturing-America/dp/074324303X/ref=pd_sim_b_1) both by Rick Perlstein (I eagerly await his planned third volume). High confidence in government was part of the New Deal consensus; and the far-right (which did not include Nixon, BTW) did at least as much as the radical left to destroy that consensus. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/73 "2012-05-25T01:44:04Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Liberals, even atheists, have a form of religion even though they apparently don’t realize it–they worship government. How else to explain the blind faith that government can make virtually anything and everything better? How else to explain the belief that children belong to the state, not to their families? (A belief that shows itself in the passage of helmet laws, booster seat laws, etc.) Ah, so children should be the expendable toys of their parents, right? And it’s not “blind faith”; government has improved virtually every aspect of our lives. Including the lives of the very people who demonize it. Claiming that the left blindly worships government is a combination of right wing propaganda and psychological projection; the right is all about blind obedience and the deification of their chosen sources of authority, so they tend to project that attitude onto everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/74 "2012-05-25T02:04:48Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > The increase in the prison population has been one of the few social experiments since the New Deal that has worked. Social reform and social welfare spending did not work. I notice that you are still refusing to acknowledge that Canada has experienced the same shift in crimes without the same increase in incarceration. Hide from that fact all you want, but until you address it adequately, you are simply inventing things to believe and failing to persuade anyone else that your beliefs have a factual basis. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/75 "2012-05-25T02:44:12Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I notice that you are still refusing to acknowledge that Canada has experienced the same shift in crimes without the same increase in incarceration. Hide from that fact all you want, but until you address it adequately, you are simply inventing things to believe and failing to persuade anyone else that your beliefs have a factual basis. Thank you. I thought my point was either falling on deaf ears, or I was delusional in my interpretation of the statistics. It really appears clear to me that incarceration is not necessarily the solution to crime prevention. Although I have no issues with locking up criminals, believe me. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/76 "2012-05-25T02:49:31Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > At a guess, I would think that the blatant deceptions in multiple venues uncovered during the Nixon presidency probably set a tone of distrust that has continued through to this day . . . "There is almost a Yin/Yang clarity in the difference between the two men [Nixon and McGovern], a contrast so stark that it would be hard to find any two better models in the national politics arena for the legendary duality – the congenital Split Personality and polarized instincts – that almost everybody except Americans has long since taken for granted as the key to our National Character. This was not what Nixon had in mind when he said, last August, that the 1972 presidential election would offer voters “the clearest choice of this century,” but on a level he will never understand he was probably right . . . and it is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to despise. Our Barbie doll president, with his Barbie doll wife and his box-full of Barbie doll children is also America’s answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts, on nights when the moon comes too close . . . At the stroke of midnight in Washington, a drooling red-eyed beast with the legs of a man and the head of a giant hyena crawls out of its bedroom window in the South Wing of the White House and leaps fifty feet down to the lawn . . . pauses briefly to strangle the Chow watchdog, then races off into the darkness . . . towards the Watergate, snarling with lust, loping through the alleys behind Pennsylvania Avenue, and trying desperately to remember which one of those four hundred identical balconies is the one outside Martha Mitchell’s apartment . . . " – Hunter S. Thompson ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/77 "2012-05-25T11:12:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I notice that you are still refusing to acknowledge that Canada has experienced the same shift in crimes without the same increase in incarceration. Hide from that fact all you want, but until you address it adequately, you are simply inventing things to believe and failing to persuade anyone else that your beliefs have a factual basis. What I see from the link you posted in Fig.5: Annual Homicide Rates are substantial declines in the United States after reaching peeks in 1981 and 1991. The rates in Canada and England and Wales are fairly flat. > **[Research at Correctional Service Canada - Canada.ca](https://www.canada.ca/en/correctional-service/corporate/research.html)** > > Learn how CSC research helps offenders work towards successful reintegration and assists staff in identifying effective strategies to work safely and efficiently. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/78 "2012-05-25T12:58:01Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > What I see from the link you posted in Fig.5: Annual Homicide Rates are substantial declines in the United States after reaching peeks in 1981 and 1991. The rates in Canada and England and Wales are fairly flat. > > [http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rsrch/briefs/b29/b29-eng.shtml#LinkTarget\_562](http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rsrch/briefs/b29/b29-eng.shtml#LinkTarget_562) Shifting the goalposts does your argument no good. Overall crime has followed the same approximate curves in the U.S. and Canada while incareceration has shot up in the U.S. Drops in homicides might result from any number of factors, but if you want to prtetend that they are due only to locking up a lot of people for lesser crimes, you need to provide evidence for that rather than hiding from the overall trend in the way that you have been doing for the last couple of days. You also have to acknowldege that your original claim was in regard to crime, not homicide. You are failing to persuade. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/79 "2012-05-25T13:54:56Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Shifting the goalposts does your argument no good. > > Overall crime has followed the same approximate curves in the U.S. and Canada while incareceration has shot up in the U.S. Drops in homicides might result from any number of factors, but if you want to prtetend that they are due only to locking up a lot of people for lesser crimes, you need to provide evidence for that rather than hiding from the overall trend in the way that you have been doing for the last couple of days. You also have to acknowldege that your original claim was in regard to crime, not homicide. > > You are failing to persuade. I am failing to persuade you because you feel that criminals are victims of social and economic injustice who deserve remedial education, job training, recreational facilities, and psychological treatment paid for by the tax payers. The murder rate is a good measure of the entire crime rate because murders are more likely to come to the attention of the police. The increase in the prison population is not the only reason for the decline in the crime rate, but it is an important reason. Another factor that contributes to the decline in the rate of violent crime after 1991 is the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. Females with the highest abortion rate are most likely to give birth to boy babies who become violent street criminals. A potential mugger who was aborted in 1974 would have been eighteen in 1992. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937/80 "2012-05-25T14:18:52Z")
Why are murder rates lower in states without the death penalty? Why are murder rates lower in England, a country with a f[ar lower perecentage of the country incarcerated](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate)? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-the-government-lost-prestige-since-1964/622937.md?page=5)