4 ms·

Since it's never explained what this is about, before you read the article you might want to know: > The lead–crime hypothesis is the association between eleva

• jeffbee 5y ago
  So, the evidence for this hypothesis is extremely strong. There have been studies of children who did or did not get treated for high blood lead levels, and those who did not had much higher rates of criminal behavior. These were children from the same schools, same neighborhoods, same time. All the confounding circumstances are controlled. The Lead-Crime Hypothesis may also refer to the idea that lead is the main reason for the global crime wave that peaked in 1990. The evidence for this is less convincing.
  • monort 5y ago
    The strong evidences you are talking about are usually confounded by socioeconomic status. One recent longitudinal study in New Zealand have found only a very weak correlation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5801257/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5801257/
    • jeffbee 5y ago
      That study isn't as powerful as what I mentioned. That is a longitudinal study of children who were exposed to lead, and their life outcomes. The study I want to mention was of children, all of whom were exposed to lead, but only some of whom were treated for it, based on a threshold of blood lead concentration. Figure 4 in this paper is particularly compelling. They show a strong correlation between blood lead levels and violent criminal behavior in later life, but the intervention group, who were exposed to lead but received treatments for it, had much lower rates of crime. You should read it to see if you think they didn't control for socioeconomic factors well enough. Section II and Table 1 in particular. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056
      • birdyrooster 5y ago
        If one were receiving treatment for lead, wouldn’t that correlate with socioeconomic status? I’m sure many poor people went untreated and poverty leads to violent crime. Which page addresses this? I’m too lay to understand.
        • jeffbee 5y ago
          The treatments in question are administered by the state, at no charge, and some of them are mandatory. It's really not a long paper. Go read it.
        • Kranar 5y ago
          In the U.S., yes. In the rest of the developed world, no.
          • mmvhncx 5y ago
            Impoverished children and expecting mothers have access to medicine paid by the government/taxpayer in the US through Medicaid I know it's fun to posture about how backwards the US healthcare system is but we actually do literally have the system in place that you're virtue signaling about us not having, as it applies to children People act like the US has no welfare at all and it just isn't true. Children whose parents can't afford treatment can still get treatment, and have been able to for more than half a century. My own niece was born in a hospital because of this. My adult sister received treatment for her collapsed lung at the same time, paid for by the taxpayer, because she couldn't afford it. Medicare and Medicaid might not be perfect but acting like the US has no safety net is a lie
            • dv_dt 5y ago
              In an shorthand comment, I’m not sure if we can differentiate if the commenter was saying there is literally no safety net, or if the safety net is insufficient, and arguably unevenly applied based on region and race. One anecdote of someone reviving a medical service is certainly not sufficient for a discussion of the latter.
  • noxer 5y ago
    > All the confounding circumstances are controlled. How can you control everything? These studies do not control what no one thought about that it could have an effect. Its impossible to control everything.
    • jeffbee 5y ago
      It's as close as you'll get to a random controlled experiment on this topic, because an actual controlled experiment would not be ethical. Studying people from the same school who lived in the same neighborhood at the same time controls a hell of a lot of the usual confounders.
      • spoonjim 5y ago
        True. Perhaps one possible confounder though is that parents who are attentive enough to think about lead paint and test for it / paint over it / remove it are also more clued in on other matters.
        • jeffbee 5y ago
          One of the studies I'm thinking of relies on the boundary effect, where children who tested with 100µg/dl of lead in their blood were all treated and those with 99.99µg/dl were not, and this threshold (I'm not sure exactly what it was) is way too high.
          • deleted 5y ago
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        • MontyCarloHall 5y ago
          Right. The same issue confounds studies that show charter schools perform better than their public school counterparts, after controlling for student demographics. It could be that the quality of a charter school education is truly better, but it’s also possible that parents who care enough about their kids’ education to take initiative to send them to a charter school provide a better home environment in general.
  • deleted 5y ago
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• karmakaze 5y ago
  Yeah me too, I was thinking crimes that precede other crimes. After seeing "Does lead pollution increase crime?" in the linked paper it all became clear. These articles should always, at least briefly, describe the subject that the meta is about.
• NikolaNovak 5y ago
  I on the other hand assumed it was about initial/smaller crime "leading" into bigger/continues crimes. I heart English Language!