| Abstract: | There are three principal alternative explanations for the dramatic rise in crime over the last 15 years: (I) the retirement of capital punishment; (2) socioeconomic trends; (3) random social shocks starring with the Kennedy assassination in 1963. This article reports a statistical test of the second of these explanations. On balance, the results are unfavorable to it. The statistical test involves the extrapolation of a predicted homicide rate obtained from a reduced form regression equation estimated over the capital punishment era into the postcapital punishment era. The predicted homicide rate (based on socioeconomic variables) continues the long-run secular decline pattern after 1962, while the actual homicide rote rises precipitously. The article concludes with a brief argument that the capital punishment moratorium seems somewhat more plausible than the social shock theory as an explanation for the crime increase. |
