Out of all the factors Levitt chooses to dissect for the reader as a way of describing why crime dropped in the 1990’s, the most outlandish one was his argument that involved the Crack Epidemic. Although the Crack Epidemic did come into the political spotlight during the Regan administration, where they introduced their Zero-Tolerance policy for drugs, all it really did was cause an influx of criminals to go to jail for a longer period of time due to the Crack-Cocaine disparity that was created (100:1). Yes, there was also the establishment anti-drug movements, such as DARE and Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, but overall it fueled the War on Drugs, since individuals were going to jail for longer terms, for the amount of drugs that they…show more content… In the article, Levitt explains the history of how Crack Cocaine was created and took prominence in the U.S during the late 1980’s, and then moves on to explain the theories of the positive correlation between the use of the drug and violence, which he uses the example of homicides. Rather then describe crime in its entirety through the multitude of crimes, he focuses on one, which is more of a “case study” form of study, which cannot be generalized like Levitt attempts to do. The real reason why crime was declining was because criminals were being stuffed into prisons to make sure they were not on the street causing havoc. At the time, the United States was in a state of incapacitating all criminals to contain all those that were a risk to the community, which leads to the other factor that Levitt also discusses, “The Rising Prison Population”. Although I do agree that the increase in incarceration did allow for crime to lower since less criminals were out causing trouble, the Crack epidemic did not lower on its own, it lowered because most of the buyers were
