7 ms·

Related: "much of the decline in crime in the 1990s may have been due to the reduction of childhood lead exposure after the removal of lead from gasoline and ho

by t0mek 7y ago

Related: "much of the decline in crime in the 1990s may have been due to the reduction of childhood lead exposure after the removal of lead from gasoline and house paint." http://freakonomics.com/2007/07/09/lead-and-crime/ http://freakonomics.com/2007/07/09/lead-and-crime/

Maximus9000 7y ago
And other big part was legalized abortion. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion/
- bjourne 7y ago
  The abortion theory is pretty much busted by now. You find the same crime-reduction pattern in European countries were abortion has been legal since the 1940s. You don't find subsequent crime increases in countries were abortion has been outlawed or access to it has been severely restricted.
  - Maximus9000 7y ago
    hmm, well I did listen to the above podcast which was recorded in 2019, and they revisited the abortion numbers and still thought it was very relevant. Do you have a link I can check out?
    - bjourne 7y ago
      Donohue and Levitt have, as they say, "dug their heels in." But other researchers have tried and failed to find correlations between abortion and crime in other datasets. See f.e. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071728?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071728?seq=1#metadata_info_ta... and https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9401/e8f1a53aa4437beed139ec2b2f1741f44be3.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9401/e8f1a53aa4437beed139ec... Other researchers have focused on Donohue and Levitt's study itself and found methodological flaws. See https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098.pdf and https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=866864 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=866864: "We revisit that paper, showing that the actual implementation of DL's statistical test in their paper differed from what was described. (Specifically, controls for state-year effects were left out of their regression model.) We show that when DL's key test is run as described and augmented with state-level population data, evidence for higher per capita criminal propensities among the youths who would have developed, had they not been aborted as fetuses, vanishes."
  - Mathnerd314 7y ago
    This paper uses differing dates of abortion legalization in Western Europe to find a strong effect of abortion reducing crime: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818814000568 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01448... Those are dates in the 60's though, so not sure what European countries you're referring to. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_reproductive_rights_legislation#1910s_to_1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_reproductive_right... the only country with on-demand abortion before 1950s was the Soviet Union for a brief period.
    - bjourne 7y ago
      The hypothesis is that abortion causes lower crime rates. Thus, a few or even a single counter-example is enough to invalidate the hypothesis. Data points that confirm the hypothesis doesn't add much new information since these results too could be caused by the same confounding variables that caused the first result (correlation doesn't imply causation). Yes, it was the Soviet union and other Eastern European countries that had liberal abortion laws which they then reversed to spur population growth that I referred to. If Donohue and Levitt's theory were correct, the generation born during the years abortion was legal would be less criminal than following generations.
      - Mathnerd314 7y ago
        And do you have a source analyzing that? All I can find are some off-the-cuff remarks from 2001 with no data analysis.
  - K0SM0S 7y ago
    Just FYI, I don't know about others but France legalized abortion in 1975 after what is told as a rather uphill battle lead by Simone Veil [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Veil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Veil
specialist 7y ago
I'd like studies of connections, if any, between lead and behavior (fear response, anxiety, authoritarianism). Ditto other pollutants.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  They've probably been done. Let us know if you find any good ones on Google Scholar or elsewhere.
zjaffee 7y ago
I absolutely believe that removing it from gasoline is a big factor, but I think it's often over emphasized in the context of today. Cleveland has twice the prevalence of lead paint over any other big city in the united states, yet has 25% lower violent crime prevalence than say, st louis, baltimore, detroit, and memphis.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Lead paint tends to stay on the wall so as long as you don't eat paint chips it's not as big a risk as particulate lead in fuel exhaust. If you are removing lead paint you need to wear a suitable respirator to avoid breathing in fragments but just being in a room with lead paint or a lump of the stuff isn't especially dangerous.

by t0mek 7y ago

Maximus9000 7y ago

And other big part was legalized abortion. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion/

bjourne 7y ago
The abortion theory is pretty much busted by now. You find the same crime-reduction pattern in European countries were abortion has been legal since the 1940s. You don't find subsequent crime increases in countries were abortion has been outlawed or access to it has been severely restricted.
- Maximus9000 7y ago
  hmm, well I did listen to the above podcast which was recorded in 2019, and they revisited the abortion numbers and still thought it was very relevant. Do you have a link I can check out?
  - bjourne 7y ago
    Donohue and Levitt have, as they say, "dug their heels in." But other researchers have tried and failed to find correlations between abortion and crime in other datasets. See f.e. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071728?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071728?seq=1#metadata_info_ta... and https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9401/e8f1a53aa4437beed139ec2b2f1741f44be3.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9401/e8f1a53aa4437beed139ec... Other researchers have focused on Donohue and Levitt's study itself and found methodological flaws. See https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098.pdf and https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=866864 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=866864: "We revisit that paper, showing that the actual implementation of DL's statistical test in their paper differed from what was described. (Specifically, controls for state-year effects were left out of their regression model.) We show that when DL's key test is run as described and augmented with state-level population data, evidence for higher per capita criminal propensities among the youths who would have developed, had they not been aborted as fetuses, vanishes."
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
  This paper uses differing dates of abortion legalization in Western Europe to find a strong effect of abortion reducing crime: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818814000568 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01448... Those are dates in the 60's though, so not sure what European countries you're referring to. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_reproductive_rights_legislation#1910s_to_1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_reproductive_right... the only country with on-demand abortion before 1950s was the Soviet Union for a brief period.
  - bjourne 7y ago
    The hypothesis is that abortion causes lower crime rates. Thus, a few or even a single counter-example is enough to invalidate the hypothesis. Data points that confirm the hypothesis doesn't add much new information since these results too could be caused by the same confounding variables that caused the first result (correlation doesn't imply causation). Yes, it was the Soviet union and other Eastern European countries that had liberal abortion laws which they then reversed to spur population growth that I referred to. If Donohue and Levitt's theory were correct, the generation born during the years abortion was legal would be less criminal than following generations.
    - Mathnerd314 7y ago
      And do you have a source analyzing that? All I can find are some off-the-cuff remarks from 2001 with no data analysis.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  Just FYI, I don't know about others but France legalized abortion in 1975 after what is told as a rather uphill battle lead by Simone Veil [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Veil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Veil

specialist 7y ago

I'd like studies of connections, if any, between lead and behavior (fear response, anxiety, authoritarianism). Ditto other pollutants.

nitrogen 7y ago
They've probably been done. Let us know if you find any good ones on Google Scholar or elsewhere.

zjaffee 7y ago

I absolutely believe that removing it from gasoline is a big factor, but I think it's often over emphasized in the context of today. Cleveland has twice the prevalence of lead paint over any other big city in the united states, yet has 25% lower violent crime prevalence than say, st louis, baltimore, detroit, and memphis.

anigbrowl 7y ago
Lead paint tends to stay on the wall so as long as you don't eat paint chips it's not as big a risk as particulate lead in fuel exhaust. If you are removing lead paint you need to wear a suitable respirator to avoid breathing in fragments but just being in a room with lead paint or a lump of the stuff isn't especially dangerous.