Arrest rates fall by 50% almost as soon as women become pregnant, and fall much further as the pregnancy goes on
ALMOST ANY parent will agree that once you have a child, life is never quite the same again. Having to provide for another, utterly dependent, human being can spur new mums and dads to find reserves of generosity, care and energy they never knew they had. Aby Maxim Massenkoff and Evan Rose, two economics PhD students at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the very prospect of becoming a parent makes them much more law-abiding, too.
Using data on over 1m babies born in Washington state between 1996 and 2009, and on thousands of crimes committed there between 1992 and 2015, the authors find that when women become pregnant, they are much less likely to be arrested, for a wide range of crimes. The effect is most marked for “economic” crimes, such as theft and burglary, but is also true of assaults, vandalism and alcohol and drug offences.
Alas, the two economists also reach other, less encouraging, conclusions. Arrests of men for domestic violence soar immediately after birth. The authors suggest this may be because new parents are living together for the first time. Whatever the cause, for some, parenthood can bring misery as well as joy.
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