Research Links Lead Exposure, Criminal Activity
Data May Undermine Giuliani's Claims
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 8, 2007; Page A02
Rudy Giuliani never misses an opportunity to remind people about his track record in fighting crime as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
"I began with the city that was the crime capital of America," Giuliani, now a candidate for president, recently told Fox's Chris Wallace. "When I left, it was the safest large city in America. I reduced homicides by 67 percent. I reduced overall crime by 57 percent."
Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the "New York miracle" was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning.
The theory offered by the economist, Rick Nevin, is that lead poisoning accounts for much of the variation in violent crime in the United States. It offers a unifying new neurochemical theory for fluctuations in the crime rate, and it is based on studies linking children's exposure to lead with violent behavior later in their lives.
What makes Nevin's work persuasive is that he has shown an identical, decades-long association between lead poisoning and crime rates in nine countries.
"It is stunning how strong the association is," Nevin said in an interview. "Sixty-five to ninety percent or more of the substantial variation in violent crime in all these countries was explained by lead."
Through much of the 20th century, lead in U.S. paint and gasoline fumes poisoned toddlers as they put contaminated hands in their mouths. The consequences on crime, Nevin found, occurred when poisoning victims became adolescents. Nevin does not say that lead is the only factor behind crime, but he says it is the biggest factor.
Richard Nevin has updated his graphs for crime, unwed teen pregnancy and mental retardation trends in a non-academic overview called “The Answer is Lead Poisoning”, with links to related academic research, at http://www.ricknevin.com/
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Our prison systems are so full of people who have problems affecting brain function - not "mental" illness but MEDICAL illness. There are factions in the USA trying to advocate treatment rather than imprisonment. Pete Early wrote a book - Crazy about that. There is also Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) and this website: http://changementalhealthlawsinky.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeletePrisons have taken the place of hospitals.
There seems to be layers and layers to advocacy. The above say the people deserve treatment rather than imprisonment. The next problem, though, is what TYPE of treatment, because just sedating with Haldol without investigating the underlying cause is NOT the right answer. And that's where advocates like you come in.
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