Want to reduce crime? Get the lead out.
Sun Jul 08, 2007 at 07:34:47 AM PDT
NY City’s drop is crime is being attributed to changes in environmental actions, not in Giuliani’s crime policies. Today’s Washington Post highlights the research of economist Rick Nevin, who has studied the effects of lead exposure on the rates of crime among adults who lived in high lead areas as children. In this country and in several places around the world, crime rates have risen 20 years or so following a rise in lead exposure, and fallen 20 years or so following a decrease in lead exposure. It is this rise and fall, not policies of being "soft" or "hard" on crime, that has made the rates rise or fall.
There are four key points I want to make:
First, lead exposure can damage the brain in ways that prevent good development of impulse control. As an affected child grows up, he or she is more likely to be drawn into criminal activities, because the ordinary control over impulses is limited, sometimes quite severely. If circumstances draw a youth’s impulses to criminal activities, the lack of self-control makes crime much more likely.
Developmental psychopathologists have long known that lead exposure is one possible route into the cluster of symptoms that is called attention deficit disorder. Lead exposure symptoms don’t destine a child to a life of crime, but they often mean that control of impulses is very hard to acquire, particularly in the face of other disruptive influences in life, such as poverty, family disruption, etc. I stress that this impulse control is not simple will power; it is also what controls and regulates a very wide range of ordinary behavior as most adults do without having to think about it. Life is very difficult if you lack some or a lot of that ability to control impulses. In the extreme, it can involve people in criminal activity.
Second, what is essential is that lead exposure is of primary danger to the youngest children. In young children, the damage by lead exposure is being done, and removing the lead can reduce the damage. Lead screening of pregnant women, infants, and preschool children should be widespread and an automatic part of health checkups. Lead can be removed from a young child’s body pretty successfully, with a return of good neural functioning. However, after kids start school, removing lead from their bodies is much less effective: the damage to the brain has been done and at this point in medical science, the effects on the brain are largely permanent. Thus it is urgent to have young children in high risk areas tested young. It’s also urgent to have older housing tested for lead, and practical strategies used if lead is found. Unfortunately, there are no longer federal funds for widespread testing of preschool children or widespread fixing of older housing that contains lead.
What kids are at risk? Any child living where lead is in the air, or in older housing – predominately children in the inner cities, and in poor, rural communities and areas. If your housing is old, children in that house are at risk, whatever your income. Kids breathe in the lead from windows that are raised and lowered. If lead is in the air, kids will be exposed. Kids get lead-laced dust on their hands and feet (and into their mouths). Lead paint is slightly sweet, so little kids who stick things into their mouths or bite on surfaces with lead paint will ingest the lead. Old chipping paint makes interesting crackly sweet stuff to chew on. It also crumbles into dust.
Third, the neuroscience that looks at lead exposure is quite consistent with Nevin’s work. Few if any of the people who study animal models of ADHD or impulsivity would be surprised at Nevin’s findings. Few people who study impulsivity in children or youth who have been lead exposed are likely to be surprised by his findings. What is most impressive, frankly, is that he has linked the rise and fall in exposure to rising and falling crime rates across several decades, both here and in several other places. That tends to rule out alternate explanations such as local policing policies of a particular administration, e.g. Mayor Giuliani in NYC.
That brings up the fourth issue: Political policies need to focus on prevention. That's not the usual way politicians talk about crime. Giuliani and others - Democrats are not immune from this – often use crime rates as a "voter alarm issue". Being soft on crime is a catch phrase that has resulted in simplistic punishment-based programs aimed at reducing crime by maximizing prison sentences.
Nevin’s research suggests that it is essential to do work now that prevents crime in the future, not just focus on the next couple of election cycles. It takes a third of a life span to grow a lead-exposed child to adulthood. What we do now about lead won’t affect 2012 or 2016 crime rates, but it will be for the good of our country's future. We need politicians who are willing to spend political and financial capital on the long-term. Isn’t that a lot of what being a progressive is about?
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