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FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
Mon Apr 21, 2014, 11:28 PM Apr 2014

Did removing lead from gasoline spark a decline in crime?

Many Western nations have experienced significant declines in crime in recent decades, but could the removal of lead from petrol explain that?

Working away in his laboratory in 1921, Thomas Midgley wanted to fuel a brighter tomorrow. He created tetraethyl lead - a compound that would make car engines more efficient than ever.

But did the lead that we added to our petrol do something so much worse? Was it the cause of a decades-long crime wave that is only now abating as the poisonous element is removed from our environment?

For most of the 20th Century crime rose and rose and rose. Every time a new home secretary took office in the UK - or their equivalents in justice and interior ministries elsewhere - officials would show them graphs and mumble apologetically that there was nothing they could do to stop crime rising.

Then, about 20 years ago, the trend reversed - and all the broad measures of key crimes have been falling ever since.

Offending has fallen in nations whose governments have implemented completely different policies to their neighbours.

If your nation locks up more criminals than the average, crime has fallen. If it locks up fewer... crime has fallen. Nobody seems to know for sure why.

But there are some people that believe the removal of lead from petrol was a key factor.


http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615
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krispos42

(49,445 posts)
2. Yup.
Mon Apr 21, 2014, 11:39 PM
Apr 2014

That's why crime rates plunged after about 1990. Most violent crime is done by people aged 15 to 25, and we pulled lead from gasoline in the early 70's. The math works.

Widespread access to abortion services (1973) and the rise of video games and cable TV (1980's) helped, too.

 

NYC_SKP

(68,644 posts)
3. I can't resist asking if it doesn't have to do more with the lead in bullets.
Mon Apr 21, 2014, 11:40 PM
Apr 2014

But that would just be too easy.

I'm thinking that environmental lead is indeed a factor in antisocial behavior.

I also think that there's a likely correlation between households with lead paint and gun violence.

However, that second correlation is probably more due to poverty, the common denominator between guns, violence, drugs, despair, and environmental lead.

In the end, this stands out:

broad measures of key crimes have been falling ever since


:/

kcr

(15,300 posts)
7. While it's not always true, I wonder if constant repeating of this gives the impression
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 12:28 AM
Apr 2014

That there is never a link between correlation and causation. That simply isn't true. It never fails that someone brings this up any time anything like this is discussed. You don't find this interesting? I do. There could easily be a connection given that lead has clearly been shown to affect development. It isn't a stretch by any means.

laundry_queen

(8,646 posts)
9. You might want to read the link
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 01:15 AM
Apr 2014

It explains how the one researcher looked state by state (each state followed a different timetable for removal of leaded gas).

But, sure, there were other things happened during that period that could've contributed (according to my sociology textbook, the following could have an influence: baby boomers got old, better crime solving techniques took more dangerous offenders off the streets, coordination of police forces across larger areas, awareness of prevention of crime). Lead removal could be a piece of the puzzle, but it doesn't mean in and of itself it caused crime to go down. I also think perhaps an intolerance of corporal punishment or abuse now also plays a role in reduction of violence. Maybe other things too, like more awareness of mental disorders, better treatment of those disorders, a focus on rehabilitation in (some) prisons...perhaps all of these things behaved synergistically too...we don't really know. The research in the link is compelling, though. Lead removal likely played some role.

 

Manifestor_of_Light

(21,046 posts)
8. Last night's COSMOS episode was about the guy who discovered that lead was all over the environment.
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 12:52 AM
Apr 2014

His name was Clair Patterson and he was using a mass spectrometer to check the radioactive decay of uranium in meteorites, to find out the age of the earth by measuring the amount of lead. He found out that the earth was 4.5 billion years old.

He found lots of lead in surface waters, but not in deep waters. He found very little in ancient snow in Antarctica.
Tetraethyl lead was produced by the Ethyl Corporation as a gasoline additive. People who were making it went crazy and hallucinated. The ancient Romans knew it caused mental derangement and death but they used it everywhere anyway.

Clair Patterson published a scientific paper on the high concentrations of of lead and the oil business removed his funding, but govt agencies supported him.

He testified in front of Senator Muskie in a Congressional hearing and contradicted a Dr. Kehoe who was bought off by the oil business to say that lead was perfectly fine for people to ingest. It was a huge public health hazard.

And that's how they got lead removed from gasoline.

Lead, cadmium and mercury are all in the same column in the periodic table.

Now if they would just do the same with mercury instead of insisting it's safe.


 

randome

(34,845 posts)
15. That was, as usual, a very informative episode.
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 01:10 PM
Apr 2014

[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers. It's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

Warpy

(110,900 posts)
10. Very probably, but the decrease in heating with coal
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 01:41 AM
Apr 2014

and banning lead paint also contributed. Low level heavy metal poisoning did a lot of damage to us for a very long time and a high crime rate was only part of it, IMO.

jmowreader

(50,447 posts)
11. I don't think so
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 12:48 PM
Apr 2014

From the late 1800s to circa 1980 there was a lead smelter on the west side of Kellogg, Idaho. It used to be in Kellogg until the city council got tired of being embarrassed by having this in their town, and got the legislature to move the city limits to exclude it. They incorporated the abandoned area as Smelterville, which exists today.

The lead was unbelievably high there. Every house in the Silver Valley was gray...not because you chose that color but because it chose you. You didn't have a lawn because none would grow. No one had a pet because they'd drink out of a mud puddle and die...and once was all it took. It was a total shock to the whole community when they learned Lead Creek was really the Coeur d'Alene River. According to the theory in the OP the Silver Valley should have been awash in crime...but it wasn't. Crime was almost nonexistent there, and it's pretty bad now. Lots of drug crime, lots of property crime and some violent crime.

Here's the real difference: when the smelter was running and silver prices were high, there was no unemployment to speak of. Anyone with $20 in their pocket could walk into the United Mine Workers hall in Kellogg at 8am and be shoveling galena into a trolley car by 11...and do it for decent wages. Now poverty has swept the Silver Valley and so has crime.

I will bet the real correlation is the economy has improved in the areas crime has fallen...because if the lead-crime thing was accurate you should have seen it in Kellogg.

Hekate

(90,189 posts)
13. Sunday night's Cosmos was all about the modern history of lead. Someday we'll look at autism...
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 01:06 PM
Apr 2014

... and its causes in a similar fashion -- although personally I'm convinced that because the "environment" in a woman's uterus has been polluted by so many hundreds of chemicals it's going to be a grim business untangling all their interactions.


http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/2012/06/2012-0718-phthalates-30-year-old-amniotic-fluid/
Common chemicals detected in amniotic fluid from 1980s and 1990s.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10946910
Detection of endocrine disrupting chemicals in samples of second trimester human amniotic fluid.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/chemical-contaminants-in-amniotic-fluid
Chemical Contaminants in Amniotic Fluid

As for lead, I highly recommend Cosmos. Some of this I knew, like the reasons for finally outlawing its use in interior paints, but I had no idea of the earlier sell-job claiming lead's safety that was done on the public via even children's coloring books.

 

NuclearDem

(16,184 posts)
14. As a contributing factor, maybe.
Tue Apr 22, 2014, 01:10 PM
Apr 2014

But biological factors aren't the only ones that lead to criminal behavior.

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