Thanks for posting that, it's good to see some other explanations for reduced crime. Crime in a society is a very complex phenomenon and not easily explained. I

Thanks for posting that, it's good to see some other explanations for reduced crime. Crime in a society is a very complex phenomenon and not easily explained. I remember a few years ago when Freakanomics popularized the theory that crime went down because of Roe vs Wade increased abortions, in particular abortions of troublesome minorities who cause crime, implying that criminality was correlated to race. This idea is now a widely held belief even though there are lots of things that have changed over the years that you could just as easily also correlate but are not necessarily causal. At least with this one (lead) there is actual known scientific data showing that lead exposure does increase violent behavior and there is a causal link (lead poisoning leading to a specific sort of brain damage). edit: ah and having just pressed post I see that someone else here was thinking of the same comparison.