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posted by mrpg on Friday December 29 2017, @03:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the weak-lead dept.

One popular theory has linked declines in crime rates to the elimination of leaded gasoline. A study of New Zealanders suggests that this is not the case:

Lead exposure during childhood has been tied to a variety of developmental problems, but a new study suggests it may not be associated with higher odds of criminal behavior later in life.

The study set out to address a flaw in much of the previous research linking lead and crime: mainly that it's hard to determine how much of this connection might be explained by poverty and other socioeconomic circumstances that can influence both criminal activity and lead exposure. Researchers followed 553 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and 1973, when lead exposure was common among children of all economic backgrounds because of widespread use of leaded gasoline. All of the kids were tested for lead exposure when they were 11 years old, and the study team followed them until age 38 to see how many of them were convicted of crimes.

By the end of the study, 154 participants, or 28 percent, had at least one criminal conviction, the researchers report in JAMA Pediatrics. But the odds of this happening were barely influenced by the amount of lead exposure people had during childhood. Just being male had a stronger effect than lead levels, the researchers note. "Many studies have shown that higher exposure to lead could predict more criminal behavior, but our study actually found that there isn't a clear connection between the two," said lead author Amber Beckley, a researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The reason for the different results this time is that the current study found children from all walks of life had high lead levels, Beckley said by email.

The Need to Include Biological Variables in Prospective Longitudinal Studies of the Development of Criminal Behavior (open, DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.4237) (DX)

Association of Childhood Blood Lead Levels With Criminal Offending (open, DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.4005) (DX)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @04:33PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @04:33PM (#615553)

    Who would want to live in a place with no fucking crime? I have lived in such a place, reason there was no crime to be seen was because if you farted in the basement of your home, not only would the secret police have a record of it, but said record would describe in vivid detail what it smelled like.

    Lack of crime is a symptom of something really fucking nefarious.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @04:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @04:45PM (#615560)

    if you farted in the basement of your home, not only would the secret police have a record of it, but said record would describe in vivid detail what it smelled like. Lack of crime is a symptom of something really fucking nefarious.

    So, you're saying; "huff lead, not farts"?