drawn from Steven D. Levitt, "Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors That Explain the Decline and Six That Do Not," Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, no. 1 (2004), pp. 163-90. / 120 James Alan Foxs "inten- tional overstatement": See Torsten Ove, "No Simple Solution for Solving Violent Crimes," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 1999. 122 politicians were growing increasingly softer on crime: This and a number of related issues are discussed in Gary S. Becker and Guity Nashat Becker, "Stiffer Jail Terms Will Make Gunmen More Gun-Shy," "How to Tackle Crime? Take a Tough, Head-On Stance," and "The Economic Ap- proach to Fighting Crime," all in The Economics of Life (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1997), pp. 135-44; the chapters were adapted from Business Week articles by the same authors. 122-24 Increased Reliance on Prisons: Concerning the fifteenfold increase in drug-crime prisoners, see Ilyana Kuziemko and Steven D. Levitt, "An Em- pirical Analysis of Imprisoning Drug Offenders," Journal of Public Econom- ics 88, nos. 9-10 (2004), pp. 2043-66. / 123 What if we just turn all the prisoners loose? See William Nagel, "On Behalf of a Moratorium on Prison Construction," Crime and Delinquency 23 (1977), pp. 152-74. / 123 "Ap- parently, it takes a Ph.D. . . .": See John J. DiIulio Jr., "Arresting Ideas: Tougher Law Enforcement Is Driving Down Urban Crime," Policy Review, no. 75 (Fall 1995). 124-25 Capital Punishment: For a full report on New York States failure to exe- cute a single criminal, see "Capital Punishment in New York State: Statistics from Eight Years of Representation, 1995-2003" (New York: The Capital Defender Office, August 2003), which is available as of this writing at nycdo.org/8yr.html. More recently, New Yorks Court of Appeals found the death penalty itself unconstitutional, effectively halting all executions. / 125 Executing 1 criminal translates into 7 fewer homicides: See Isaac Ehrlich, "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and     Death," American Economic Review 65 (1975), pp. 397-417; and Isaac Ehrlich, "Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy 85 (1977), pp. 741-88. / 125 "I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death": From Justice Harry A. Blackmuns dissenting opinion in a 1994 Supreme Court decision denying review of a Texas death-penalty case: Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 1141 (1994); cited in Congressional Quarterly Researcher 5, no. 9 (March 10, 1995). It should be noted that American juries also seem to have lost their