Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

Posted by samzenpus on from the is-not-causation dept.

2muchcoffeeman writes "The cause of the great increase in violent crime that started in the 1960s and peaked in the 1990s may have been isolated: lead. This leads directly to the reason for the sharp decline in violent crime since then: lead abatement programs and especially the ban of tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock agent in gasoline starting in 1996. There are three reasons why this makes sense. First, the statistics correlate almost perfectly. Second, it holds true worldwide with no exceptions. Every country studied has shown this same strong correlation between leaded gasoline and violent crime rates. Third, the chemistry and neuroscience of lead gives us good reason to believe the connection. Decades of research has shown that lead poisoning causes significant and probably irreversible damage to the brain. Not only does lead degrade cognitive abilities and lower intelligence, it also degrades a person's ability to make decisions by damaging areas of the brain responsible for emotional regulation, impulse control, attention, verbal reasoning, and mental flexibility. Another thing that stands out: if you overlay a map showing areas with higher incidence of violent crime with one showing lead contamination, there's a strikingly high correlation."

6 of 627 comments (clear)

  1. Roman Empire by geoffrobinson · · Score: 5, Informative

    And didn't help lead to the downfall of Rome as well? I believe they had a lot of lead in their wine containers.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
    1. Re:Roman Empire by pwizard2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Lead(II) Acetate was actually used as a sweetening agent. They also had lots of lead water mains too. The Romans were highly advanced for the time, but the massive quantities of lead the average Roman was exposed to certainly didn't help matters.

      --
      "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
    2. Re:Roman Empire by pwizard2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Romans were advanced. They had indoor plumbing, flush toilets (of a sort) and aquaducts that could transport water for hundreds of miles (most stretches of the aquaducts were enclosed in water mains similar to what we have today) The Romans were capable of performing complicated surgery/repair (much like the new-world cultures) and Roman public baths and enclosed sewage systems helped to maintain public health in crowded urban areas. When the legions were not fighting, they could build nearly any type of infrastructure. Roman roads and bridges have lasted for over 2000 years and are still usable today. That is very impressive considering that the parts of Europe not colonized by the Greeks or Romans were still in the tribal stage of civilization at the time.

      --
      "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
  2. Re:Correlation, Causation, blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except it isn't just simple time correlation. There is also spatial correlation (areas with different lead contamination, different countries) and for individuals there is causal link between lead poisoning these behavioural problems.

  3. Re:Correlation, Causation, blah blah by sjames · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except we do know very well that lead exposure at a young age DOES result in poor impulse control, lower IQ, and a greater tendency towards violence.

  4. Re:Correlation, Causation, blah blah by clawhound · · Score: 5, Informative

    Did you read the actual article? He address those topics precisely. He waited to publish this article until he had a stack of corroborating studies using different methodologies. One study is nothing. Many different studies of many different places, and each one maps well? That's a whole heaping mound of coincidence.