A funny thing happened on the way to mass subjugation: propensity,opportunity, and irony in two accounts of the crime decline

This article first uses the analytical lenses of crime opportunity, criminal propensity, and routine activity theory to evaluate Wendel et al.’s (2016) plausible and compelling “more drugs, less crime” hypothesis, the latest attempt to explain the crime decline that began in the 1990s. The authors’ present exposition of the hypothesis is beleaguered by methodological problems that jeopardize the validity of its central claims. An alternative media-consumption hypothesis is then briefly outlined, which suggests that changes in media-consumption patterns beginning in the 1980s were a powerful catalyst for reductions in street crime. Because both hypotheses identify mechanisms that reduce both the opportunities and the propensities to commit crime, they stand out from the majority of crime-decline accounts which are presently oriented toward opportunity almost exclusively. Both hypotheses also happen to subvert conventional wisdom in ironic ways.