New Delhi, Aug. 17 -- What factors influence crime rates? US statistics for 2025 show a sharp drop from 2024 in murders and other violent crimes, the sharpest on record since 1936. President Donald Trump's supporters have held up tough policing as the prime cause.

Yet, barring a covid blip, a downtrend has been in evidence since the early 1990s. In their 2005 book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner assigned a major role to legalized abortion.

After the judiciary's Roe vs Wade ruling of 1973 that made it legal US-wide, they argued, the birth rate of unwanted children collapsed, leaving fewer youth exposed to rough lives.

This link was controversial, of course, given America's political divide over pregnancy termination. In f...