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Whenever the high crime rates in the 70s-90s is brought up I like to remind folks this was likely an aberration with a specific environmental cause (lead), rath

by npunt 6y ago

Whenever the high crime rates in the 70s-90s is brought up I like to remind folks this was likely an aberration with a specific environmental cause (lead), rather than representative of human nature. This [1] is an eye-opening roundup of ~25 major studies that support the lead-crime hypothesis, including comparisons across countries & cultures. The evidence is pretty overwhelming and certainly changed my perspective on human nature, which for me had previously been influenced by both growing up around the violence in CA in the 80s-90s and the media culture that depicted and sensationalized it. If you walk away from this thinking 'oh, humans are a lot less violent than I thought they were', you might find other beliefs built on top of that assumption also follow. These types of perspective shifts in life are rare, and very powerful. [1] https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime-roundup-for-2018/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-le...

dionidium 6y ago
Unfortunately, homicide rates in some U.S. cities are nearing (and in some cases eclipsing) their early 90s highs. As I often do, I’ll use St. Louis as an example here, because it’s the city I happen to be most familiar with, but this is happening all over. I completely bought the story you’re telling and never thought we’d ever see homicide rates matching the gang-war carnage of early 90s St. Louis, but we’re blowing past those rates, in fact. That’s not to say the lead story is bunk, but, sadly, I don’t think you can draw the conclusion that those earlier rates were uniquely aberrant. https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-software/crime-analytics/news/21155413/st-louis-homicide-rate-reaches-historic-levels https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-soft... Edit to add this link: https://www.vox.com/2020/8/3/21334149/murders-crime-shootings-protests-riots-trump-biden https://www.vox.com/2020/8/3/21334149/murders-crime-shooting... Don’t get too focused on St. Louis, in other words; as I said, homicide rates are up all over the country.
- oblio 6y ago
  > Unfortunately, homicide rates in some U.S. cities are nearing (and in some cases eclipsing) their early 90s highs. In 2020. Year of infamy.
- npunt 6y ago
  My point was that if you baselined how good or bad you thought humans were by the crime rates in the 80s, you'd come away thinking humans were way more violent than they are. I think the same holds for 2020 - if you assess human nature by how people act when they're in the midst of a global pandemic, you'd come to the same incorrect conclusion. Another way to put it is that much of our behavior is dictated by our environment, and if we create an environment where extreme chemical, biological, psychological, and economic stressors are kept at bay, then humans are just not prone to a great deal of violence.
  - dionidium 6y ago
    > I think the same holds for 2020 The homicide rate in St. Louis bottomed out in 2003 at a rate of 21.8 per 100k. By 2014 it had more than doubled to 49.9. By 2015 it had nearly tripled to 59.3 per 100k. (It’ll end this year in the 70s per 100k). The rates have been rising for a long time. It’s not just 2020. And the trend is similar in other cities. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_St._Louis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_St._Louis
    - npunt 6y ago
      Homicides nationwide are well off of historic highs [1]. The Vox link you previously posted shows the large spike (+~30%) being 2020 related. The 21.8/100k you cite for St Louis in 2003 was also abnormally and suspiciously low, as 2002 and 2004 were in the 30s/100k. I wouldn't baseline anything off a single local outlier that's 50% off from other years. Perhaps a statistical / data collection anomaly? You can see in 2004 the rate was about 35/100k, while in 2013 it was 38/100k, a scant change. You can see that data in context within a chart in this NYT article from 2015 [2] which discusses some possible factors in St Louis' persistently high crime. 2014 and onwards is likely skewed considerably by the Ferguson unrest, and it sounds like St Louis might still be dealing with that alongside other factors. Outside the local context, none of this data at a macro scale looks like the trend we see in the 70s-80s that the lead-crime hypothesis seeks to describe though. Crime nationwide has indeed been growing slightly since 2015... to hypothesize about why we're seeing this, I'd guess it's largely due to loss of opportunity and rising income inequality leading to poverty and desperation, which our recent economic policies have only been worsening. But I'm absolutely no expert in the subject, just trying to figure things out like you are. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/st-louis-puzzles-over-stubbornly-high-murder-rate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/st-louis-puzzles-over-...
Gibbon1 6y ago
Now consider the lead politics hypothesis. If lead exposure lead to brain damage that resulted in the murder rate tripling, what is that doing to civic politics? Because while that generation has mostly aged out of the higher crime demographic. It's smack in the middle of the voter demographic.
- npunt 6y ago
  Yep, this is a worrisome thought.
- doliveira 6y ago
  Never had thought of that consequence. Quite a disturbing thought indeed.
- qes 6y ago
  > It's smack in the middle of the voter demographic. Not just voters, large portions of our representatives are also from that demographic.

by npunt 6y ago

dionidium 6y ago

Unfortunately, homicide rates in some U.S. cities are nearing (and in some cases eclipsing) their early 90s highs. As I often do, I’ll use St. Louis as an example here, because it’s the city I happen to be most familiar with, but this is happening all over. I completely bought the story you’re telling and never thought we’d ever see homicide rates matching the gang-war carnage of early 90s St. Louis, but we’re blowing past those rates, in fact. That’s not to say the lead story is bunk, but, sadly, I don’t think you can draw the conclusion that those earlier rates were uniquely aberrant. https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-software/crime-analytics/news/21155413/st-louis-homicide-rate-reaches-historic-levels https://www.officer.com/command-hq/technology/computers-soft... Edit to add this link: https://www.vox.com/2020/8/3/21334149/murders-crime-shootings-protests-riots-trump-biden https://www.vox.com/2020/8/3/21334149/murders-crime-shooting... Don’t get too focused on St. Louis, in other words; as I said, homicide rates are up all over the country.

oblio 6y ago
> Unfortunately, homicide rates in some U.S. cities are nearing (and in some cases eclipsing) their early 90s highs. In 2020. Year of infamy.
npunt 6y ago
My point was that if you baselined how good or bad you thought humans were by the crime rates in the 80s, you'd come away thinking humans were way more violent than they are. I think the same holds for 2020 - if you assess human nature by how people act when they're in the midst of a global pandemic, you'd come to the same incorrect conclusion. Another way to put it is that much of our behavior is dictated by our environment, and if we create an environment where extreme chemical, biological, psychological, and economic stressors are kept at bay, then humans are just not prone to a great deal of violence.
- dionidium 6y ago
  > I think the same holds for 2020 The homicide rate in St. Louis bottomed out in 2003 at a rate of 21.8 per 100k. By 2014 it had more than doubled to 49.9. By 2015 it had nearly tripled to 59.3 per 100k. (It’ll end this year in the 70s per 100k). The rates have been rising for a long time. It’s not just 2020. And the trend is similar in other cities. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_St._Louis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_St._Louis
  - npunt 6y ago
    Homicides nationwide are well off of historic highs [1]. The Vox link you previously posted shows the large spike (+~30%) being 2020 related. The 21.8/100k you cite for St Louis in 2003 was also abnormally and suspiciously low, as 2002 and 2004 were in the 30s/100k. I wouldn't baseline anything off a single local outlier that's 50% off from other years. Perhaps a statistical / data collection anomaly? You can see in 2004 the rate was about 35/100k, while in 2013 it was 38/100k, a scant change. You can see that data in context within a chart in this NYT article from 2015 [2] which discusses some possible factors in St Louis' persistently high crime. 2014 and onwards is likely skewed considerably by the Ferguson unrest, and it sounds like St Louis might still be dealing with that alongside other factors. Outside the local context, none of this data at a macro scale looks like the trend we see in the 70s-80s that the lead-crime hypothesis seeks to describe though. Crime nationwide has indeed been growing slightly since 2015... to hypothesize about why we're seeing this, I'd guess it's largely due to loss of opportunity and rising income inequality leading to poverty and desperation, which our recent economic policies have only been worsening. But I'm absolutely no expert in the subject, just trying to figure things out like you are. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/st-louis-puzzles-over-stubbornly-high-murder-rate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/st-louis-puzzles-over-...

Gibbon1 6y ago

Now consider the lead politics hypothesis. If lead exposure lead to brain damage that resulted in the murder rate tripling, what is that doing to civic politics? Because while that generation has mostly aged out of the higher crime demographic. It's smack in the middle of the voter demographic.

npunt 6y ago
Yep, this is a worrisome thought.
doliveira 6y ago
Never had thought of that consequence. Quite a disturbing thought indeed.
qes 6y ago
> It's smack in the middle of the voter demographic. Not just voters, large portions of our representatives are also from that demographic.