
Did removing lead from petrol spark a decline in crime? - austinz
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615
======
spingsprong
I what some people here seemed to be missing, is this correlation isn't just
lead was removed from the environment and 23 years later crime went down. It's
that various areas has differing degrees of lead pollution and started
reducing it at different times.

The places that reduced lead pollution first, saw the drop in crime first, the
places that reduced it later saw the drop later. The eras that initially had
high levels of lead had a larger drop in crime than areas that always had a
low level.

And it's not just the USA either. The pattern holds pretty accurately for
various nations around the world, like in Europe. Those who banned leaded fuel
first, saw the drop in crime first, those who banned later, saw the drop
later.

And these nations had massively differing crime policies. Some nations
increased prison sentences to try and deter crime, and crime went down. Some
nations put a huge effort into reforming criminals, and crime went down. And
some nations cut prison sentence, and crime went down.

~~~
FranOntanaya
Aren't the politics required to enforce lead reduction the same that would
tackle crime, though? I don't think there are many enviromentally-friendly
corrupt parties.

~~~
jtheory
The crime reduction reliably occurs 20 (23, from the graph?) years _after_ the
lead reduction; there's no response in the crime rate until the less-lead-
exposed babies have become adults.

The politicians who tackled crime (or didn't, or did whatever) 20 years ago
haven't been in power most of the time since then, generally.

I've read about this theory before; it's impressive and (to me, at least)
pretty persuasive.

~~~
originofspecie
To paraphrase a comment I made further up, banning lead in gasoline is a
binary initiative that doesn't take a long time to initiate. Cracking down on
crime is a longer process.

------
tim333
Mildly off topic but Bill Bryson is interesting on how we ended up getting
lead in petrol in the first place
[http://enconv.org/docs/index-26824.html?page=11](http://enconv.org/docs/index-26824.html?page=11)

Except: "So in 1923 three of America’s largest corporations, General Motors,
Du Pont, and Standard Oil of New Jersey, formed a joint enterprise called the
Ethyl Gasoline Corporation (later shortened to simply Ethyl Corporation) with
a view to making as much tetraethyl lead as the world was willing to buy, and
that proved to be a very great deal. They called their additive “ethyl”
because it sounded friendlier and less toxic than “lead” and introduced it for
public consumption (in more ways than most people realized) on February 1,
1923.

Almost at once production workers began to exhibit the staggered gait and
confused faculties that mark the recently poisoned. Also almost at once, the
Ethyl Corporation embarked on a policy of calm but unyielding denial that
would serve it well for decades. As Sharon Bertsch McGrayne notes in her
absorbing history of industrial chemistry, Prometheans in the Lab , when
employees at one plant developed irreversible delusions, a spokesman blandly
informed reporters: “These men probably went insane because they worked too
hard.” Altogether at least fifteen workers died in the early days of
production of leaded gasoline, and untold numbers of others became ill, often
violently so; the exact numbers are unknown because the company nearly always
managed to hush up news of embarrassing leakages, spills, and poisonings. At
times, however, suppressing the news became impossible, most notably in 1924
when in a matter of days five production workers died and thirty-five more
were turned into permanent staggering wrecks at a single ill-ventilated
facility. ..."

------
dredmorbius
Midgley is perhaps among the most damaging engineers the world has known: he
is responsible for both tetraethyl lead additives to gasoline (the subject of
this article) and chloroflorcarbons, responsible for damaging the Earth's
ozone layer:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr).

This story is also a very strong argument toward both regulation of markets
due to externalities (lead in gasoline and paint were defended vigorously by
their respective industries for decades), and of the argument that there are
some products and services which, despite being profitable to those dealing in
them directly, impose a net negative cost to society as a whole.

Such activities are often difficult to recognize strictly because of the
nature of externalities: they're diffuse, affecting many individuals, often
incrementally in a small way, often indirectly and, in the case of
environmental lead, with impacts lagging cause by decades.

This is also a very powerful case of negative impacts accruing largely due to
socioeconomic circumstances _not_ ascribable to the conscious and voluntary
decisions of those directly affected: neither the infants and children exposed
to lead, nor the victims of the criminal acts they transacted on a
probabilistically greater scale, had entered into any sort of voluntary or
legally recognized agreement with the manufacturers of leaded gas and paint.
Punches a bit of a hole in that whole libertarian argument which promptly ...
sinks like a lead balloon.

------
lostlogin
This has come up before with the Mother Jones article
[http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-
li...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-
gasoline) This article is better in my opinion. Good discussion on HN then
too.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368)

~~~
dredmorbius
Lead paint really can't be mentioned without bringing up the name, work, and
abuse heaped upon Herbert Needleman who drew many of the associations between
the use of lead in paint and brain damage to children, especially inner-city
and underprivileged youth:

[http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/health/why-is-lead-
sti...](http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/health/why-is-lead-still-
poisoning-our-children/)

 _For his efforts, Needleman endured years of attacks denigrating the quality
of his research and his integrity as a scientist. In 1982 the industry-funded
International Lead Zinc Research Organization (ILZRO) went to the
Environmental Protection Agency to accuse Needleman of scientific misconduct.
The EPA convened a committee of experts, which concluded that Needleman’s
study had not proved a connection between lead exposure and a child’s mental
development. Needleman countered that the committee report contained serious
mistakes. The EPA agreed, reversed the committee’s findings, and lauded
Needleman’s “pioneering study,” saying it confirmed a “significant
association” between lead exposure and childhood intelligence._

 _The ILZRO hired the public-relations firm Hill & Knowlton to publicize the
original committee’s criticisms of Needleman._

 _Two scientists led the next attack on Needleman. One was Sandra Scarr, a
developmental psychologist at the University of Virginia who had been a member
of the EPA committee that disputed Needleman’s study. The second was Claire
Ernhart, a developmental psychologist at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland, who called Needleman’s study “slipshod.” Beginning in 1983,
Ernhart, who had conducted lead research, received about $50,000 a year from
ILZRO for research support but denies being beholden to the lead industry or
speaking on its behalf. Scarr claims not to have received money from ILZRO
other than expert witness fees and likewise denied industry influence...._

 _In all, the attacks on Needleman’s work and integrity and his defense
against them dragged on for 15 years._

Intentional disinformation is a major theme of this (59 minute) lecture by
Philip Mirowski, an economic historian (he focuses largely on global warming
but the principles and rationale apply broadly to other cases of economically
incentivized disinformation):
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7ewn29w-9I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7ewn29w-9I)

Among other things, it references the work of Naomi Oreskes and Erik M.
Conway, _Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on
issues from tobacco smoke to global warming_ , and Robert N. Proctor's _Golden
Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition_.

I discuss these at more length here:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/deep_ecology/comments/1yum2c/life_an...](http://www.reddit.com/r/deep_ecology/comments/1yum2c/life_and_debt_living_through_the_financialisation/)

~~~
gretful
Sounds like the attacks of the global warming alarmists on people that
question their theories.

~~~
Jweb_Guru
Disputing flawed studies does sound like something that scientists who
acknowledge human-caused global warming might engage in, yes. The same is true
of, for example, vaccine-autism linking studies. This is in fact something
that happens all the time in the scientific community. The better question is
whether those scientists were getting paid large sums of money by industry in
order to make those claims (hint: they aren't--in fact, the opposite is true,
with virtually all global warming denialism organizations linkable to large
private investments by the oil industry).

------
ignostic
It's been suggested that the removal of lead from fuels, paints, etc. may
explain the fact that our IQs have risen since about the same time, and since
leveled off somewhat.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

Say what you will about environment, but the lead explanation seems to match
historical data in all the ways we'd expect it to. Find something that lead
does, and we find a trend showing its decline since we started eliminating
lead.

~~~
gretful
Speaking of historical data: leaded plumbing is linked to the decline of the
Roman Empire.

~~~
shabble
Are there reliable sources on that?

Also, using Lead Acetate[1] as an artificial sweetener probably didn't help
matters.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%28II%29_acetate#Sweetener](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%28II%29_acetate#Sweetener)

~~~
gretful
Here's a good place to get started:
[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/win...](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html)

although this argues that lead in plumbing was NOT a major source of
poisoning.

------
parfe
NPR just ran the story "Study: Half Of Jailed NYC Youths Have Brain Injury"

 _The study found nearly 50 percent of both boys and girls reported traumatic
brain injuries that resulted in a loss of consciousness, amnesia or both. And
they said 55 percent of those injuries were caused by assaults._

 _An estimated 60 percent of adult prisoners have a brain injury, according to
a study of prisoners in South Carolina._

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3045728...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=304572805)

The US justice system has become extreme in the pursuit of punishment vs
treatment and rehabilitation.

~~~
AlexMuir
That is vs 30-40% of the general population.

There's nothing unexpected here. Youths mostly go to jail for violence. The
more fights you get into, the more likely you are to be injured. I'd imagine
that there's a far larger percentage of number of jailed youths with knife
scars than those in school. That doesn't mean knife scars cause people to end
up in prison.

~~~
edoloughlin
_There 's nothing unexpected here. Youths mostly go to jail for violence. The
more fights you get into, the more likely you are to be injured. I'd imagine
that there's a far larger percentage of number of jailed youths with knife
scars than those in school. That doesn't mean knife scars cause people to end
up in prison._

I'm no neurologist, but i suspect that a brain injury might change your
personality more than a scar from a knife fight, possibly making you more
likely to engage in criminal behaviour.

~~~
AlexMuir
I see no reason why a head injury shouldn't equally change a personality to
become less criminal. Head injuries have completely unpredictable effects. My
core point is that prisons are full of violent people, and violent people
punch and receive more punches, therefore are more likely to have brain
injuries.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Sometimes head injuries do make you less likely to become a criminal. Very few
people in comas and vegetative states commit crimes.

------
dhughes
Yup, Cosmos was on tonight, subject: lead. It's nice to see it got some brains
fired-up.

PBS also had a great series the Poisoner's Handbook about different poisonous
elements and the one about lead was more in-depth about leaded gasoline.
Charles Norris was an amazing person!
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduc...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/poisoners-
introduction/)

------
maxerickson
Sesame Street debuted in 1969.

Whenever I see stories like this, I wonder what sort of impact it has had.

~~~
taf2
Or to say the introduction of violent video games in the mid to late 90s and
the rise in gun violence in schools in the last few years? Young children
growing up with the increase exposure to violence could be related?

~~~
CamperBob2
_Or to say the introduction of violent video games in the mid to late 90s and
the rise in gun violence in schools in the last few years?_

Oh, you must mean _this_ (
[http://www.theesa.com/policy/scotus_chart.gif](http://www.theesa.com/policy/scotus_chart.gif)
) rise in violence.

~~~
bnegreve
I genuinely don't know whether violent video games implies more violent
behaviour, but I am 100% sure that this chart doesn't prove or disprove
anything.

~~~
CamperBob2
You offered a suggestion that was based on a false premise. I posted a chart
that shows that your premise was false -- nothing more, nothing less. You
responded by pointing out that the chart doesn't "prove" anything. This is
true. It can't prove causation, because there's no effect to observe in the
first place. You might as well ask whether cell phone radiation is responsible
for our present worldwide bubonic plague epidemic.

Your beef is with whoever told you that the world was becoming more dangerous,
not those who post statistics that paint the opposite picture. Somebody lied
to you. Find out why.

~~~
bnegreve
> _You offered a suggestion that was based on a false premise._

I haven't, I am not taf2. I was just saying that this inverse correlation that
you see may be due to other factors or may not even be statistically
significant. We're missing a lot of data here (e.g. how does the juvenile
crimes rate fluctuates prior to 1990).

------
yukichan
I've read about a couple of different explanations for changes in crime rates.
I think freakanomics has discussed greater prevalence of abortions[1], and one
thing I've heard in academic circles is that crime reporting has gotten
better. You could actually make predictions with this article's question.
There may have been areas where lead was used in petrol for longer than
others, one could compare across regions and see if the time at which petrol
was changed also adheres to drop in crime to see if there is still a
correlation.

[http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-
sh...](http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-
believe/)

~~~
wobbleblob
Levitt and Dubner wrote down a number of interesting theories about lots of
things, but I think they overthought this one.

The crime rate rose and dropped pretty neatly along with the proportion of
young men in society. The median age is much higher now than it was 30 years
ago. Crime, especially violent crime, is a young man's game.

Perhaps they are right and roe vs wade was one of the factors in raising the
median age, but it seems that people today want smaller families, and have
more control over this than a generation ago. You can't assume that if a woman
has an abortion, a miscarriage and two kids over her lifetime, she would have
had four children if it hadn't been for the abortion and the miscarriage.

~~~
XorNot
While I've been generally convined Freakonomics is to be considered suspect on
this, the argument you present in the last paragraph doesn't counter it: the
Freakonomics point was that absent abortion, people were forced into having
children earlier when they were not ready to support them fiscally or
emotively due to their situation, whereas with control of their fertility they
can choose when they are best prepared and most desired them.

~~~
wobbleblob
My point was that a society dominated by young men is going to have more crime
than a society with a median near middle age - that smaller families made us
calmer. They didn't convince me that younger parents are worse than older
ones.

------
vixin
Maybe there is an interesting story to be written concerning another heavy
metal - mercury and its use in dental amalgam.

Aside from whether it's prudent - irrespective of current evidence - to
permanently store a compound containing 50% of a neurotoxin an inch or two
from your brain, the release of almost 3,000 kilograms (6,613 lbs.) of mercury
(data for 2005 alone) into the atmosphere from crematoria is cause for worry.
Wikipedia notes that 'Good empirical data on the magnitude of mercury
emissions from crematoria, however, are lacking'. No one is interested I
guess.

------
aestra
This is relevant. Always use cold water from your pipes to cook with and drink
especially if you live in an older home. Also let the water run for a minute
to flush out the pipes if it hasn't been used in a while.

The EPA states:

>Flush your pipes before drinking, and only use cold water for consumption.
The more time water has been sitting in your home's pipes, the more lead it
may contain. Anytime the water in a particular faucet has not been used for
six hours or longer, "flush" your cold-water pipes by running the water until
it becomes as cold as it will get. This could take as little as five to thirty
seconds if there has been recent heavy water use such as showering or toilet
flushing. Otherwise, it could take two minutes or longer. Your water utility
will inform you if longer flushing times are needed to respond to local
conditions.

>Use only water from the cold-water tap for drinking, cooking, and especially
for making baby formula. Hot water is likely to contain higher levels of lead.
The two actions recommended above are very important to the health of your
family. They will probably be effective in reducing lead levels because most
of the lead in household water usually comes from the plumbing in your house,
not from the local water supply.

[http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8615/is-there-
an...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8615/is-there-any-reason-
to-use-cold-water-over-hot-water-for-boiling)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html?_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html?_r=0)

~~~
ds9
It's significant that there is this advice, and it supports the point of the
article, but this is really insufficient. If you can't be sure of the water
quality at the tap (as parent notes, different from the quality at the plant
where the utility measures contaminant levels), then it's best to use a filter
that removes metals (as well as biological contaminants).

Also people should be aware: the government somehow allows pipes and fittings
to be sold as "lead free" when in reality they contain up to a few percent of
lead.

~~~
BAKidd
Be careful with filters-the main issue with lead is that it leaches from pipes
and/or solder. Most of the cases I am aware of in modern (post 1970s) US homes
were related to whole house reverse osmosis systems, because the ion-free
water had so much more capacity for free metal ions. If you have hard water,
it is almost impossible to persuade lead out of the pipe into solution. If you
do want to use a filter, make sure you have an at the tap point filter as
well.

------
frik
The European Union (EU) banned lead from petrol in 2000. [1]

Airplanes are still allowed to used leaded petrol!! [1]

And the immigration movement to Europe increased the crime. [2]

[1]
[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorenbenzin#Verbleites_Benzin](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorenbenzin#Verbleites_Benzin)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe)

------
Symmetry
Scott Alexander had a pretty good blog post on other sorts of potential
biological correlates with crime recently.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/18/proposed-biological-
exp...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/18/proposed-biological-explanations-
for-historical-trends-in-crime/)

------
drakaal
I ate lead paint chips I turned out fine... None of those felony charges
stuck.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckeye_CableSystem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckeye_CableSystem)

I don't doubt that the reduction of lead in our environment has reduced the
amount of mental illness. But I also think changes to truancy laws in the US
in the 70s helped, advancements in psychotherapies, and drugs for the
treatment of mental illness helped. Identification of treatments for ADD and
ADHD helped.

Changes in the economy helped, we had more women in the workforce which meant
we had more ability for families to survive father's unemployment.

Wider adoption of TV meant people became more aware of crime, and criminals
were easier to catch.

So yes, lead removal was probably a contributor, but I think it was bigger
than that.

------
jamesbrownuhh
I wonder if the result could be less about the lead itself having a direct
effect on behaviour, and the action of the removal of lead being identified as
"something obvious and beneficial which would be good to do" as being
coincident with a greater enlightenment amongst those making the rules?

I.e. to what extent "we should remove lead from petrol as that is obviously
bad" is actually a handy indicator of more considered minds running the shop,
those minds also being more predisposed to the kind of other "obviously good"
decisions which could also have brought about an eventual reduction in crime.

------
ballard
Sort of related, neat history of another toxic gasoline additive: tetra-ethyl
lead

[http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-
earth/](http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/)

~~~
thrownaway2424
I see you didn't click through and read the article.

~~~
coolsunglasses
Speaking of toxic, do you think you could be less so? I realize you're a
throwaway but you wouldn't need one if you weren't being abusive and rude.

~~~
ballard
Gracias.

There seem to be ever more folks ready to overreact with pitchforks and
cudgels calling for the draw and quarter anyone over misinterpreting the color
of a bikeshed.

It's too bad folks choose to disagree, point out something as an excuse to be
uncivil and with the cowardice of anonymity.

------
ap22213
I grew up in the 90s and can affirm that violence was substantially higher
than now. It was common to get into 'street fights' just for something to do.
But, I'm also curious whether there were higher death rates for the
potentially violent, which could have also rapidly reduced crime rates.

Of my friends in the 80s / 90s, I've had around 20 of them die over the course
of 20 years. Of those who've died, I can say the great majority were in the
'violence prone' category. They generally seemed to have lower ability to
gauge risks and sought out risky behavior, frequently.

~~~
ap22213
Why all the down votes? HN is becoming a hostile wasteland.

------
kayoone
Previous HN discussion a year ago with 200 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368)

------
rwhitman
I've never seen a study correlating the rise and ubiquity of video games with
the drop in crime.

Before video games, bored young males ran around the neighborhood making
mayhem. Today they sit in front of an xbox. I personally think the people who
would be out committing violent crimes are still in society they just have a
way doing it virtually.

~~~
akgerber
I can't find a link at the moment, but I've seen articles where parents in bad
neighborhoods talk about buying their sons video game consoles specifically to
keep them sitting at home, rather than out on the dangerous streets.

------
NAFV_P
An enlightening article, it reminded me of an article from the Guardian on
ammonia synthesis and its environmental and social impact:

[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/03/fritz-
haber-f...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/03/fritz-haber-
fertiliser-ammonia-centenary)

------
pmorici
Is there anything new in this article? There was another piece that I think I
remember reading on HN about a year ago on this same topic.

[http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-
li...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-
gasoline)

------
stretchwithme
Might be able to confirm this by testing kids for lead poisoning in countries
where leaded gas is still legal.

There are children that lived in the country and later move to the city. How
early their exposure began would be the variable being tested.

You could treat all cases of lead poisoning you find and still be able to
measure the impact of leaded gas on development.

Of course, I think the jury has been in on lead gas and paint for decades. But
I guess for a poor country, an economic case must be made.

~~~
kevingadd
Well, it's talking about chronic lead poisoning, not acute lead poisoning.
Different things. It's interesting to consider that chronic lead poisoning
could have escaped notice for a long time because the symptoms seemed like
random variance to you or me when they were actually a trend.

------
mrfusion
Does anyone think there could also be a link between lead in fuel and
Alzheimer's? If there was, at what point would we start seeing Alzheimer's
cause decline?

------
A_COMPUTER
Are there countries, or locations in the USA that could be used as a control
for this hypothesis? Places that didn't get rid of lead.

~~~
enf
The control is Australia, which got rid of it about a decade later than the
US.

~~~
api
Are there places that still use it?

~~~
enf
Wikipedia says it is still available in "Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Myanmar, North
Korea, and possibly Afghanistan."

~~~
lingben
also Iran

------
thrownaway2424
The incredible thing is that they still allow private aviators to use leaded
gas, primarily because it would cost the owners of obsolete aircraft a few
thousands dollars to either refit their engines, or get supplemental type
certificates for unleaded gas. These joyriding dipshits fly all over the place
spraying lead over everybody.

~~~
Theodores
Even more incredible is that our parents and grandparents willingly drove cars
that spewed out lead into the atmosphere.

 _They knew lead was a poison._

Even the Romans knew lead was a poison so it wasn't like asbestos where
suddenly a realisation was made.

Yet everyone pretended it did not matter. Everyone did what everyone else did.
Nobody thought to avoid driving past schools because they weren't sure about
the ethics of covering kids in a cloud of lead (with NO2, CO, O3, PAH's and
maybe some invisible micro particles thrown into the mix).

~~~
benjiweber
Many people still drive around cars that spew toxins into the atmosphere.

Air pollution from cars kills 50,000 a year in the UK [0]. Apparently closer
to 200,000 a year in the US.

But it's even worse than that. 1.24 million each year are killed directly by
motorists.[1] There are more young people killed directly by motorists than
malaria or aids.

And yet many people are happy to continue driving around.

It's not like this is unavoidable. Electric cars are here, we could move the
pollution out of cities. We could design our cities to be safer for walking
and cycling. We could invest in public transport and pass on the cost of some
of the externalities of cars to motorists.

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/mar/22/air-
pollu...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/mar/22/air-pollution-
deaths) [1]
[http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs358/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs358/en/)

~~~
sergiosgc
I don't know how it is where you live, but I pay about 60% tax on gas. This is
quite common in Europe. How much more of the externalities do you want to
burden drivers with?

~~~
jessaustin
Enough to make them drive less!

------
SonicSoul
funny, i was just speaking with someone this weekend who was convinced about
correlation to crime in NYC vs legalized abortion. (Donohue-Levitt hypothesis)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_ef...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect)

------
jmnicolas
I'm a target shooter, I wonder how the lead contained in the bullets and that
is burned at firing time is affecting me :s

~~~
DanBC
This was a concern for the armed forces who have conducted studies on lead-
alternatives for ammunition. (Aplogies if I get my bullet terminology wrong -
I have little idea about this stuff. Here I'm talking about the lead slug
projectile part of the round of ammunition).

[http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19116438](http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19116438)

I think that alternatives cause other problems by stripping the gun barrel and
etc.

On a gentle tangent I sometimes wonder how many rounds of ammunition were
fired during Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And how much brass and lead there is
for local populations to recover and sell. And whether that's worth the risk
of handling unfored ammunition or finding cluster bomblets or similar.

~~~
logfromblammo
The brass would be more easily recovered. The lead and depleted uranium is not
quite so simply recycled.

Recall that hollow-point ammunition is banned for use by national armies. A
lot of their munitions are designed to tumble in soft tissue or to shatter on
impact. Some rounds are intended to send a rivulet of liquified metal through
armor.

Under such conditions, I am sure that a lot of the fired rounds ended up as
dust, to either be inhaled immediately or to become a soil contaminant later.
Turning every battle site into a Superfund-style cleanup is unlikely according
to the local economics.

------
jbb555
No. It's mostly due to the big increase in standards of living over the past
40 years. But the BBC don't want to admit that things have actually improved
quite a lot because it conflicts with the narrative they try to push day after
day so it must be...petrol.

------
puppetmaster3
A bit like
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy)

------
spcoll
Many variables share this exact graph shape over the 1960-2000 period, without
having anything to do with crime. It's not a particularly characteristic
shape. This seems to be a textbook example of "correlation does not imply
causation".

If there was causation (due to the neurological effects of long-term lead
exposure during childhood years), then you would observe _delayed_ correlation
(at a 20 year scale), not simultaneous correlation.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
Correlation does not imply causation, however correlation can be used to
support a theory of causation. The article does address this point:

    
    
       "There is a substantial causal relationship," she says.
       "I can see it in the state-to-state variations. States
       that experienced particularly early or particularly sharp
       declines in lead experienced particularly early or 
       particularly sharp declines in violent crime 20 years later."
    

Without reading the paper, I will not venture any opinion on the
hypothesis/research/etc itself. I do however thing it may take more than 5
words to completely dismiss the theory.

~~~
XorNot
The causative mechanism is the body of research done on the brains of
criminals. We usually find reduced function or actual damage in the frontal
cortex, and other regions associated with empathy and emotional processing.

The other group of people we find this in is those suffering from childhood
lead exposure, and we know that the regions of the brain most affected are
those which occur from lead exposure.

While not going so far as to imply everyone with this pattern becomes a
criminal, it certainly increases the statistical likelihood that they are, and
studies on people with extreme issues - i.e. psychopaths - tend to show that's
its a pattern of life experiences which determine whether you learn to
function in society, or go another path. Notable is the neuroscientist who was
studying psychopaths and discovered he has the same sort of brain structure as
one - but, is a scientist, married and has children.

Since we can't really control an individuals life experiences through policy,
but they roughly sort out statistically based on socioeconomic status, it
seems pretty clear that exposure to brain development inhibiting neurotoxins
is going to give you a higher then expected fraction of criminally-inclined
young adults.

------
vacri
This always amuses me. Crime in the US was rising... until the mid-90s when
the twin powers of the ridiculously high incarceration rate j-curved and the
internet bringing all sorts of indoor distractions happened.

I mean, who would have thought that teenage delinquency would be reduced by
distributing computer games, giving them something to do rather than wander
the streets being bored?

And if lead really is responsible for 90% of the crime, as stated in the
article by the chief propagandist, then before leaded fuel was around, crime
should have been negligible - and it clearly wasn't.

Edit: perhaps the lead-in-your-fuel people should debate against the
concealed-carry people, since both of them claim absolute ownership of the
decline in US crime from the mid-90s onwards.

~~~
spamizbad
Problem with the CC argument is that this trend has been witnessed in other
countries that have no such gun laws. And if the US was a special case, how
would it explain all the cities that saw a drop in crime with restrictive gun
laws (Several of which were deemed unconstitutional a decade after the crime
drop began?)

As for youth distractions: The internet did not have significant saturation
until the 00s.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_States)
seems to indicate that in 2000, only 2.5% of Internet users had broadband.

Video games exploded in popularity in the 1980s while crime was still rising -
not to mention this was a time when arcades were far more prolific, so you
could make the argument that entertainment was more accessible to youths with
families that couldn't afford video game systems in 1980 than 1990 onward.

~~~
vacri
Going out to an arcade puts you out and about. And when the money runs out,
the arcade has no further interest for you. There's no money to run out with a
video game at home. While there were some homes with consoles and computers in
the 80s, home computers didn't really take off for the general public until
the 90s, and you see also that it was the 90s when the game industry at home
really took off. You don't need the internet to play video games.

As for CC, it should be clear I'm not fond of their arguments :)

~~~
spamizbad
I want to believe but...

Looking at crime stats by age and gender of arrest [1] You see an across-the-
board decline for men and women. You're telling me a 60 year old woman was too
busy playing Doom on a 486 to commit a violent crime?

[1] [http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/additional-ucr-
publicat...](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/additional-ucr-
publications/age_race_arrest93-01.pdf)

~~~
vacri
So, keeping in context of my original comment, do you have statistics for how
many 60-year-old women are engaged in teenage delinquency?

Keep in mind that the period you're talking about in the US (1993+) is around
the start of hysterical anti-crime politicking, with a soaring incarceration
rate, and heavily increased funding for policing.

Or for something more relevant to 60-year-old women in the 90s, how about it
being more socially acceptable to leave an abusive husband? Or better social
support services than previously?

There's a lot of different things that affect crime - I'm not saying in the
slightest that any one thing is responsible for crime or lack thereof.

------
dschiptsov
Correlation is not causation. Of course, there is a correlation between
pollution and "depression" (as in "depressive regions") or "desperation", but
it is not a direct cause of seemed decline in crime.

My bet is that the decline (or at least shift to less dramatic
"technological/financial" crimes) is a cultural phenomena, influenced heavily
by cheap and easy credit and media (especially so-called "social media"). It
is just not cool or fashionable to be a dumb looter or a "primitive" gangster
anymore.

Nowadays one has to be "a clever guy" \- a cheater instead of a criminal, an
internet tycoon, overcharging credit cards of idiots who had ordered a colon
cleanser form a stupid website, instead of simple armed robber of a drugstore
on the corner.

This works even for Russia, which, putting aside some African extremes, is the
most criminalized society in the world. Even for them it is more fashionable
to run a porn studio to sell pictures in the net than robbing trucks or
brutally killing each other for a used BMW car.

Nowadays one has to be "clever" to steal from the government, to gamble the
corrupted [banking] system , cheat on idiots in internet, and even with their
own credits and mortgages.

The shift from stupid brutality to technological/financial/social "cleverness"
(as they think of it) is what others call "decline in crime".)

------
1stop
Removing lead also lead to greater usage of facebook! Look at the stats!

Lead Usage:

    
    
       |\
       | \
       |  \
       -----

Facebook usage:

    
    
       |  /
       | /
       |/
       -----
    

EDIT: While my post is satirical, and slightly obnoxious, it presents about as
much evidence and citation as the article. The graph he presents (where did
that come from?) doesn't even show proper correlation, it just kinda-sort-of
fits.

~~~
matthewmacleod
First off, this is a news article - not a peer-reviewed study. You can't
reasonably expect complete detail to be included - have a look at the linked
papers.

Second, there's substantially more detail in here than you have stated. For
example, the correlation between the decrease in violent crime and the use of
lead is reproduced in areas with differing crime policy, and shows a similar
kind of decline in areas which stopped using lead earlier or later than
others.

Third, "it just kinda-sort-of fits" is all you will ever get in anything
outside of pure mathematics. The real world is pretty noisy, and exact
correlation is never going to happen.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word _no_."

~~~
downandout
Careful, they're out in droves downvoting anyone that disagrees with the
premise of this story.

~~~
vacri
We don't need Betteridge's Law quoted every single time there's a question
mark in the article title.

~~~
downandout
We also don't need environmentalist drivel that has no hope of being
scientifically proven on the front page of HN, along with a vocal minority
waiting to pounce on anyone that questions the validity of such nonsense. Yet,
somehow it winds up there.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm sure you have at least as much research and data backing your hypothesis
as this article does. Please do link it so we can take a look for ourselves.

I'm sure you don't just have an unreasoning, politically-motivated, knee-jerk
hatred of anything that strikes you as "environmentalist." That would be
silly, after all.

~~~
downandout
That's just it: this article presents no data showing a definitive link
between the two. Show me some evidence of that, and I'll be happy to agree
with it. I agree with _facts_ ; not politically motivated opinions. It shows
that one thing happened, and another thing happened. The tie (or, the much
hated term "correlation") between the two is a stretch at best.

~~~
CamperBob2
See comments elsewhere about the effects observed when lead was removed from
gasoline in different geographical areas at different times. The correlation
is strong enough to be suggestive of a causal link -- so strong, in fact, that
the burden of proof lies on those (e.g., yourself) who claim that there is no
causal link.

------
PavlovsCat
That graph seems silly, why use two different time scales?

~~~
6d0debc071
They're showing it roughly twenty years later. The argument being, in effect,
that lead exposure when young lead to later-life criminal behaviour.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Oops, now I feel silly :) Thanks.

------
downandout
Correlation does not imply causation. While lead exposure may have _something_
to do with it, an issue like the crime rate is driven by a number of complex
factors.

Perfect example of why this type of analysis is ridiculous:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_indicator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_indicator)

~~~
dfc
You might enjoy this article: "Correlation does not imply causation: How the
Internet fell in love with a stats-class cliché"

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/10/correlation_does_not_imply_causation_how_the_internet_fell_in_love_with_a_stats_class_clich_.single.html)

~~~
etfb
That comment was such an epic burn, it contributed to global warming!

... Which is why, I suspect, the commenter you replied to won't believe it
either. _Sigh._

------
lutusp
Some say it was a decline in environmental lead, as the linked article does.
Some say it was the advent of mandatory sentencing and three-strikes laws.
Some say it was the easy availability of birth control and abortion, meaning
fewer unwanted children were born.

But, social psychologists to the contrary, we will never know, because this
kind of study can never ascend to the level of science. All we can be sure of
is a rise in ... not crime, but contentless articles whose titles end in a
question mark.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
Antipositivism is a thing, like it or not. I've aways loved the quote from
Heisenberg:

    
    
        > The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that
        > which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in
        > silence. But can any one conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing
        > that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we
        > omitted all that is unclear we would probably be left with completely
        > uninteresting and trivial tautologies.
    

Rejecting the entirety of a science because it deals in confidence values
rather than "facts" is foolish; it might be better to judge works based on
their quality, rather than some ranking that deems X to be a science and Y to
be something other. I particularly love that you used the word "ascend"; I
shan't be the first to compare positivism to scientism

~~~
beagle3
"science", to some, implies a discipline subject to the scientific method -
none of this discussion is. Replace "science" with "discipline" in your post
and it will make sense.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
Nope. Still not seeing how "this kind of study can never ascend to the level
of discipline (née science)" is something that can be stated without any
supporting argument.

~~~
lutusp
> Still not seeing how "this kind of study can never ascend to the level of
> discipline (née science)" is something that can be stated without any
> supporting argument.

If you understood the basics of science, you would know what's missing from an
opinion article that picks a quantity at random and discovers a correlation
with something else, but without a testable theory about how they might have
something to do with each other.

Science requires something, that something can be expressed in s single word,
and once that word is uttered, all who hear it will realize why this kind of
article cannot represent science. And I am astonished by how few people know
this requirement of scientific practice.

Science isn't the answer to the world's problems, but for certain problems, it
has no meaningful substitute.

~~~
qubitcoder
As a thought experiment, just imagine Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, and
Richard Feynman gathering their teams together in a room for a major
announcement.

All three scientists have reached a unanimous conclusion. Each time they try
to measure some aspect of an atom, their results are inconsistent! They
declare to to their teams that this cannot be real science. After all, we need
reliable measurements in order to do science. So let’s not waste our time any
longer. Go home, get some rest, and come back tomorrow. And please take a
moment to review the equations governing the path of flying baseballs. We
think this merits a second look.

Fortunately history tells a different story.

By the way, I’d highly recommend reading the outstanding book “Quantum
Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum” by Leonard Susskind of Stanford. If you’ve
seen a matrix before, then you’re good to go (with some effort). He walks you
through the rest.

As a fair warning, try to mentally prepare yourself. Your seemingly rational &
logical viewpoints, while admirable, will be shattered one by one. And you’ll
see that even our precious boolean logic is merely an illusion.

EDIT: Oops. Wrong level. This reply was geared to downandout in above thread.
Apologies.

