The relation between lead exposure and criminality.
In a past diary I mentioned studies looking at causes for the current somewhat higher rate of criminality in the USA, searching for pointers applicable in other societies and situations. After Chuchundra’s comment, I have been keeping an eye out in the literature for evidence to back up his comment.
A recent study from Cincinnati demonstrates, possibly for the first time, a correlation between criminality and maternal prenatal lead levels.
From the Editors’ summary
In 1978, 13.5 million US children had a blood lead level above 10 _g/dl, the current US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blood lead level of concern (the average US blood lead level is 2 _g/dl). Lead paint and solder were banned in 1978 and 1986, respectively, by the US federal government; leaded gasoline was finally phased out in 1996. By 2002, only 310,000 US children had a blood lead level above 10 _g/dl. However, children exposed to lower levels of lead than this—through ingesting flakes or dust residues of old lead paint, for example—can have poor intellectual development and behavioral problems including aggression.The researchers found that increased blood lead levels before birth and during early childhood were associated with higher rates of arrest for any reason and for violent crimes. For example, for every 5 _g/dl increase in blood lead levels at six years of age, the risk of being arrested for a violent crime as a young adult increased by almost 50% (the “relative risk” was 1.48).
Of course, all the usual caveats of “correlation do not imply causation” hold in this instance.
However!
One possibility, which the authors were unable to assess in this study, is that lead exposure impairs intelligence, which in turn makes it more likely that a criminal offender will be caught (i.e., arrested). The authors discuss a number of limitations in their study—for example, they probably did not capture all criminal behavior (since most criminal behavior does not lead to arrest). Although both environmental lead levels and crime rates have dropped over the last 30 years in the US, the overall reduction was not uniform—inner-city children remain particularly vulnerable to lead exposure. The findings therefore suggest that a further reduction in childhood lead exposure might be an important and achievable way to reduce violent crime.
The point of this diary was to re-look at some of the issues raised by BG in his recent diary. Too often, criminality is put down to moral deficiencies, decrease in religiosity or racial inadequacies or innate sociopathic behaviour - all with the added subtext that these issues are insoluble. Whereas, in some cases, as above, it may be ascribed to an empirically correctable situation. Before ascribing a social condition to a moral/religious failing perhaps we should wait for empirical problems to be corrected first.
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References -
Lead exposure causing a drop in IQ and therefore increase in incarceration is an interesting hypo.
I wouldn't opt for 'they were too dumb to escape the police b/c they were explosed to lead' tho.
How about IQ is one measure of liklihood/suitability for entering the workforce. Those with lower IQs are more likely to turn to crime for earnings.
btw, some of these statistical inferences, at least the original IQ and lead exposure correlation, are performed by Bayesian Nets, which are awesome cognitive models for processing data.
They're all over the place these days. Look em up if you're bored sometime.
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). . .has worked in the past. Pedro Guerrero--one of the most dangerous hitters of the 1980's while playing with the Dodgers--was acquitted of drug conspiracy charges when a jury bought his lawyer's argument that Pedro's low IQ (allegedly 70) prevented him from understanding that he was involved in a drug deal. A pyrrhic victory, to say the least.
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| parent )That was what was suggested in the 2nd link
lead exposure impairs intelligence, which in turn makes it more likely that a criminal offender will be caught (i.e., arrested).
My hypo is better b/c it doesn't assume IQ measures general intelligence of the sort that underwrites escaping arrest.
But there is definitely a correlation between IQ and job success in the US. And lack of job prospects is plausibly correlated with a life of crime and thus arrest rates.
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| parent )Here's a post I wrote about this topic. Follow the links and you'll see another fascinating study, this one a multiple-population study indicating that the drop in crime in the U.S. during the 90s (and other parts of the world at other times) may have been due to environmental lead laws changing two decades earlier.
--More Wagster!
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)the community's moral failings, while the liberal coral are blaming the coral community's government, for the loss of their shells.
Interesting links, btw. I should spend some more time on your archives.
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| parent ). . .most of those who are exposed to those conditions do not become criminals. I'm all for reasonable measures to get rid of lead in the environment, as long as it isn't used as a pretext to coddle violent criminals in the meantime: the Old Yeller Rule applies.*
*--for the readers outside the US who don't recognize the reference, this is a convenient source. That movie and many years of listening to excuses made for violent criminals led me to formulate the Old Yeller Rule a few years ago. In its most basic form, it reads: "Yes, it's very sad--it's not really his fault. Shoot** him."
**--"Lock him up and throw away the key" can be substituted for "shoot" where appropriate and credible given the jurisdiction. It makes the Rule kind of wordy, though.
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)Next time, Manish, when you propose solutions to seemingly intractable social problems, you could sweeten the deal by promising more torment to prisoners.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )The environmental lead issue may be tractable (though a possible source of statistical error occurs to me), but two issues remain:
A) You have some population that was exposed and became criminal.
B) You have some population that became criminal despite lack of exposure.
This tells you nothing in particular about how to deal with either group.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent )A similar analogy would be smoking.
So that, e.g. if you exposed 100 lungs to the same quantity of cigarette smoke, 30 would get a cancer (in a manner of speaking). Of those 100 lungs, 10 might have got cancer anyway.
And yes, it tells you nothing about how to deal with either group, but thats not the point of the diary. The point is rather to point out, roughly analogous to what you were saying about the religious idea. That noting the presence, or an excessive criminality in a particular population may have a somewhat more banal explanation - such as an environmental one.
As is well known, statistical correlations do not answer questions in individual cases - e.g. poverty and deprivation may be statistically linked to criminality, but it does not follow from this that everypoor or deprived child will end up as a criminal. Or lawyers and dishonesty. And so on.
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| parent )....on those points.
Scott's point, as I see it, is precisely that a statistical factor should in no case be used to excuse individual behavior or as a convenient tool for short-circuiting further action. There is no clear line of causation, only an increase in propensity, and in any case you can't unbreak eggs.
--The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer
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| parent ). . .these days that lead in the environment is a good thing? The only issue is whether the lead still around can be removed at a cost that isn't prohibitive--bankrupting local municipalities will have negative effects on children as well.
This reminds me* of the hysterical propaganda campaign waged by Democrats a while back when the GWB administration tried to marginally relax the standards for the amount of arsenic in drinking water in reaction to reports that meeting those standards in a few locations in the West would be overwhelmingly costly to the local governments, to the point of bankrupting them. Yes, arsenic is a bad thing--but is it worth wiping out local governments to reduce the levels of it in water from "safe" to "really really really safe"? People die in large numbers in car accidents--should it be mandatory to design all cars to protect drivers completely against an eighty MPH head on collision? It could be done--it would just make cars cost half a million dollars each.
*--as a topic, not referring to your presentation of it, which as usual is excellent.
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| parent )Kevin Drum has some thoughts:
Really, figure the economic impact of that over 50 years of working life. I think he's right.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )But it needs to be made in that way--as a cost-effectiveness argument. As opposed to, say, long ad campaigns by the DNC accusing Republicans of wanting to poison our children with lead. That sort of thing tends to make Republicans think that the DNC and their minions are, well, a bunch of dishonest shrieking scumbags.
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| parent )Turns out, Republicans want to poison our children with lead anyway.
A really easy one is the outcry against Midnight Basketball. The programs themselves were trivial in cost, and they were swiftly and stunningly effective. But they were a constant whipping boy of the conservative establishment.
The problem was simple -- Midnight Basketball proved that criminality could be curbed by simple quality-of-life approaches, rather than punitive ones. And that could not be allowed. In the war against The Real Enemy, Americans are always the main casualties.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )In 2012 the circle gets the square! The Scrolls will be complete! http://www.history-of-the-cathars.com/ ht caleb
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )from the sandstorm, inside your tent. When the hell will the Republicans get serious about pollution standards in this country, goddamnit? When have they ever done so?
It's just one assault on civil liberties and regulation after another. The fact is, arsenic is a toxin which operates in the mitochondria, destroying the cell's ability to produce energy. All that hoo-hah about Cost Prohibitive, is a conscience resection sort of a rite of passage for the Republican Party, like a ritual circumcision?
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| parent )it's an opportunity to give a federal contract for chelation therapy to a well-connected Republican donor. Haven't you learned anything from the last seven years?
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent ). . .when they could get the contract to give everyone $500,000 crashproof cars? As long as price is no object, might as well let local governments pay that bill under orders from the feds too.
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| parent )everyone knows what a car is, only a few percent know what chelation is. It's much easier to mask payoffs to contributors when it's an obscure area.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent ). . .and proving my point about the over-reaction. The idiot celebrities appearing before Congress to shriek about Alar on apples--sending Washington's apple industry into a tailspin. Banning cyclamates as an artificial sweetener because rats who consumed amounts equivalent to 350 cans of diet soda a day were prone to getting cancer. It's all part of the same hysteria, and is just as counterproductive.
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| parent )of all stripes to relax regulations. Don't try flim-flamming me about arsenic, there's absolutely no doubt about the toxicity of this particular element.
Today's Republican Party has opposed every environmental regulation on the books. Which is rather odd, because Nixon created the EPA.
Don't like over-reaction? Lay off the over-generalization. I'll tell you what's counterproductive, that's the whole cavalcade of Republican whistlers going past the graveyard of defunct regulation.
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| parent )befall anyone who mentions that any sort of environmental clean-up would help negate the effects of Global Warming! Those two words alone would cause the Republicans to halt any further discussions.
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )