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The Lead-Crime Connection

By on January 11th, 2013

Kevin Drum, a blogger for Mother Jones, has a provocative article out that sifts through mounds and mounds of research and finds a significant link between the phasing out of leaded gasoline and the overall decline in the rate of violent crime since the early 1990s.

He begins with seminal research done by Rick Nevin, a consultant for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 1990s. To wit:



Why offset by 20 years? Exposure to lead as children, he postulated, manifested itself as violent behavior in young adulthood. (Connections between lead exposure and a host of behavioral and cognitive problems has been long- and well-documented.) Now, as we all know, correlation is not causation. Nevin had the same concern:






Now, obviously, violent crime is a complex phenomenon and Drum admits that lead isn’t the whole story. But it is a very large part of the overall story. Something we should be aware of when folks assume that environmental protection and cleanup is a major financial burden with no discernible benefit.