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Crime Reduction Linked To Lead-Free Gasoline
Hugh Pickens writes "Even low levels of lead can cause brain damage, increasing the likelihood of behavioral and cognitive traits such as impulsivity, aggressiveness, and low IQ that are strongly linked with criminal behavior. The NYTimes has a story on how the phasing out of leaded gasoline starting with the Clean Air Act in 1973 may have led to a 56% drop in violent crime in the US in the 1990s. An economics professor at Amherst College, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, discovered the connection and wrote a paper comparing the reduction of lead from gasoline between states (PDF) and the reduction of violent crime. She constructed a table linking crime rates in every state to childhood lead exposure in that state 20 or 30 years earlier. If lead poisoning is a factor in the development of criminal behavior, then countries that didn't switch to unleaded fuel until the 1980s, like Britain and Australia, should soon see a dip in crime as the last lead-damaged children outgrow their most violent years."
Levitt's book is cited in the first paragraph of the paper, which is very interesting, but rather hard to understand on a (very) brief reading. Essentially, she says that lead contributes 56% to the drop in crime, while the availability of abortions contributes 29%.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Actually piracy has been on the increase since the end of the cold war.
That has been attributed to the increase in shipping and the decrease in patrols by the US, UK and the USSR.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Since 1992, approximately six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming combined. Annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled in that time.
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I can neither confirm nor deny that. But from what I do know, I say it's a very high probability that there at least is no lead added to new gasoline. When you add lead to gasoline, you are really adding tetraethylead (you can go to an automotive store and buy it). It does two important things 1) increases octane and 2) lubricates the fuel system. From what I know about cars, engines designed for unleaded gasoline are much different than leaded. Especially around the time of the switch over. For one, the compression of the engines is significantly different: Leaded gasoline engines were pushing 12:1 or 14:1 compression ratios, for unleaded, even today you don't see much above 9:1. So that means, at least there isn't enough lead in today's gasoline to increase the octane enough to have a high compression engine. Likewise, the valve seats and such are much different in unleaded engines because of the lack of lubricity in the fuel (and hence exhaust) now. I'd feel pretty confident saying that the amount of lean in fuel, if any, is orders of magnitude less than in leaded gasoline, and is negligible.
The book Freakanomics makes a good case for crime reduction based on the Roe v Wade - the legalization abortions. The logic goes that majority of kids who are not aborted end up being much more suspetible to crime. Another reason for reduced crime is increased police presence.
"Lead has also been associated directly with delinquent, criminal, and aggressive behavior. Denno [1990] finds that lead poisoning is the most significant predictor of disciplinary problems and one of the most significant predictors of delinquency, adult criminality, and the number and severity of offenses. Needleman et al. [1996] find a significant relationship between the amount of lead in bone (a good measure of past exposure) and antisocial, delinquent, and aggressive behaviors. Dietrich et al. [2001] followed a cohort of 195 inner-city youths from birth through adolescence, and found a clear linear relationship between childhood blood lead levels and the number of delinquent acts. In addition, Needleman et al [2002] showed that adjudicated delinquents were four times as likely to have high lead levels than non-delinquents, and several studies have shown that violent criminals exhibit higher levels of lead in their bodies than nonviolent criminals or the general population.25"
It seems to me that this environmental hypothesis is testable (and confirmed) far beyond what is attainable for most theories in the social sciences.
These statistical correlations are a complete crock. There are a million things that have changed over the last few years that could also be attributed.
One that was done piecemeal (so regression analysis could be performed) and which produced a strong signal under such analysis: Allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons for self-protection against criminals. This drastically lowers the overall violent crime and injury/death rates (even if you DO count any crooks shot in self-defense as a "victim").
Interestingly, while many thought it might produce a short bloodbath (until criminals got the message that some of their victims might be armed), that didn't happen. Instead the violent crime rate just dropped, as criminals moved to less-armed areas, switched from muggings, armed robberies, carjackings, "hot" (occupied-dwelling) burglaries, to things like burglarizing UNoccupied homes and stores, or just found legal work. Rapes dropped like a rock, too (though they went up somewhat in nearby areas that hadn't yet liberalized their own laws.)
Turns out the crooks weren't SO stupid that they couldn't see the writing on that wall. And even those who didn't get the message right away usually weren't dumb enough to keep attacking, rather than run away, when they found themselves looking at the wrong end of a pistol.
(When Florida changed to non-discretionary CCW (i.e. the license has to be granted if the applicant jumps through the correct hoops and doesn't have a criminal record), one gang switched to hitting tourist in rental cars, on the assumption they'd be unarmed - both by airport regs and lack of a permit. Florida fixed that by removing the requirement that rental cars have distinctive markings/licenses and by issuing concealed carry permits to tourists. B-) Interestingly, even during the peak of the rob-the-Florida-tourists boom a tourist had less chance of being robbed in Florida than in California.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
And yet you make no mention of the reduced incidence of ovarian and endometrial cancer among those who take the pill.
Pot and kettle and all that...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
> Instead of really helping people, we as a society have just chosen to get rid of them before they become problems.
That was the original point. Don't believe me, go read the writings of Ms. Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. She was pretty open about her notions of Eugenics and eliminating the unfit and the 'inferior breeds' from the genepool. Amazing that Jesse Jackson and AL Sharpton never have any problems with supporting politicians who support Planned Parenthood and abortion since such a high percentage of the aborted are 'their'[1] people and that this WAS (even if they won't say it in public anymore) the stated purpose behind the founding of the organization.
[1] According to both the 'Reverends' and the MSM they are the Official spokesmen for all people of African descent in the US, whether the actual people want them as their leaders or not.
Democrat delenda est
Lead levels in the Roman Empire would be worth a look.
They already were.
Body loads of lead were very high in the later periods - especially among the upper, decision-making, classes. To the point that lead was believed to have been the major cause of a lack of fertility among the upper classes and the decline of those families.
Turns out it wasn't the lead plumbing - where the lead pretty much stayed in the pipes. They had figured out that if you put a lead liner in wine bottles the wine stayed sweet as it aged, rather than turning sour. But that's not because it DOESN'T turn to vinegar - instead the vinegar (acetic acid) reacts with the lead to form lead acetate - which is so sweet it's also called "sugar of lead". And it's REALLY well absorbed by the body.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Not to say if she is right or wrong but...
I briefly read the study and she does take age into account. She uses crime rates (not absolute numbers) and finds a correlation between lead exposure in youth and crime rates at age 22 (peak crime age) using FBI data. The rates for those who grew up before leaded gas exposure were flat and rise in synch with leaded gas usage/exposure. She also points out that rates dropped the most in those states that had the greatest lead exposures.
I'd cut and paste the text but Adobe isn't cooperating.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I am currently working on my MA in Criminology and have heard this argument before. The fall in the crime rate does match up with the decision; as most offenders stop offending between the ages of 30 to 35. There was a study done on the delinquency rates of wanted versus unwanted children, and it was found that a difference did exist, however it was not significant enough to explain the national drop in the crime rate. To explain the national drop, there would more than likely be several factors. A few might be the growing prison population (most crime is committed by a handful of offenders), the increased funding to police as a result of the war on drugs (if this were true, we should see an increase in crime soon due to a shift to homeland security), and the growing hysteria over crime (fear of crime makes people take more precautions). Although, to say that a single court decision or a switch to unleaded gas was the culprit is oversimplifying the process. Personally, I would put much more stock in the Roe v. Wade thing than the unleaded gas thing. For anyone who wants to check out the article I mentioned, its - "Has Roe v. Wade Reduced U.S. Crime Rates?: Examining the Link Between Mothers' Pregnancy Intentions and Children's Later Involvement in Law-Violating Behavior" by Hay & Evans. Sorry, I couldn't find a link to a pdf file.
This reaches a new low of silliness! When leaded gasoline was supreme, millions of cars spewed lead particles into the atmosphere all around people for them to breathe in, and that is what made lead so widespread in humans. The danger from lead paint on toys is that the child will put the toy in his mouth and chew on it, releasing some lead into his system. Lead paint on toys does not emit lead vapors into the atmosphere in any great amount.
Leaded gasoline poisons everyone. Lead in paint poisons the owner of the painted object, not everyone.