{"id":183252,"date":"2015-01-15T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-16T02:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/15\/so-now-im-thanking-richard-nixon-and-pierre-elliot-trudeau-odd-history\/"},"modified":"2015-01-15T21:50:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-16T02:50:00","slug":"so-now-im-thanking-richard-nixon-and-pierre-elliot-trudeau-odd-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/15\/so-now-im-thanking-richard-nixon-and-pierre-elliot-trudeau-odd-history\/","title":{"rendered":"So, Now I’m Thanking Richard Nixon and Pierre Elliot Trudeau \u2026\u2026\u2026 Odd History"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>It turns out that the surge, and subsequent drop, in crime in Canada also appears to be an artifact of lead exposure<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I’m happy to see lead at least get a shout out. Unless I’ve missed something, this might actually be the first time the New York Times<\/em> has ever mentioned childhood lead exposure as a possible explanation for the decline in violent crime. Progress! <\/span>

<\/span>But while Eckholm is right to say that none of the other factors he mentions can explain a decline in violent crime that happened all over the world, he’s wrong to include lead in that list. It’s the one explanation that does have the potential to explain a worldwide drop in crime levels. In particular, the chart on the right shows the use of gasoline lead in Canada, which peaked in the mid-70s and then began dropping as catalytic converters became more common. Leaded gasoline was banned for good in 1990, and is now virtually gone with a few minor exceptions for specialized vehicles. <\/p>\n

So what happened? As Zimring says, Canada saw a substantial decrease in violent crime that started about 20 years after lead emissions began to drop, which is exactly what you’d expect. I calculated the numbers for Canada’s biggest cities back when I was researching my lead-crime piece,<\/a> and crime was down from its peak values everywhere: 31 percent in Montreal, 36 percent in Edmonton, 40 percent in Toronto and Vancouver, and 53 percent in Ottawa. CompStat and broken windows and American drug laws can’t explain that.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is almost certain that lead exposure is a significant factor the rise and fall of crime world wide, and given the wide variations in techniques used by law enforcement, it is likely the most significant <\/b>factor in the rise and fall of crime worldwide.<\/p>\n

Given the clearly racist assumptions of broken windows policing<\/a>, and the even more clearly racist subtext of America’s fascination with incarceration, it’s not surprising that the law enforcement establishment has studiously avoided looking at lead’s effects on crime.<\/p>\n

Racially biased law enforcement philosophies, particularly when it generates more money for law enforcement and incarceration is a feature of, and not a bug in, our society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It turns out that the surge, and subsequent drop, in crime in Canada also appears to be an artifact of lead exposure: I’m happy to see lead at least get a shout out. Unless I’ve missed something, this might actually be the first time the New York Times has ever mentioned childhood lead exposure as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1052,1079,972,1074,1104,1069,992],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crimes","category-environment","category-justice","category-medical","category-psychology","category-science","category-statistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}