TY - JOUR PY - 2017// TI - Crime, teenage abortion, and unwantedness JO - Crime and delinquency A1 - Shoesmith, Gary L. SP - 1458 EP - 1490 VL - 63 IS - 11 N2 - This article disaggregates Donohue and Levitt's (DL's) national panel-data models to the state level and shows that high concentrations of teenage abortions in a handful of states drive all of DL's results in their 2001, 2004, and 2008 articles on crime and abortion. These findings agree with previous research showing teenage motherhood is a major maternal crime factor, whereas unwanted pregnancy is an insignificant factor. Teenage abortions accounted for more than 30% of U.S. abortions in the 1970s, but only 16% to 18% since 2001, which suggests DL's panel-data models of crime/arrests and abortion were outdated when published. The results point to a broad range of future research involving teenage behavior. A specific means is proposed to reconcile DL with previous articles finding no relationship between crime and abortion.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0011-1287 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011128715615882 ID - ref1 ER -