Stop Eating the Paint Chips?

Is Reduced Lead Exposure Behind Falling Violent Crime Rates?

Economist Rick Nevin finds evidence that lead abatement may account for falling violent crime rates in recent years. Nevin was interviewed for an article in WAPO:.

"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.

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Now Freakanomics will tell you it's that there were more abortions since the 1970's. It still doesn't explain all the folks who bought into the Rapture last week.