[treyd]

If you do the same comparison of the rates of leaded gasoline during childhood to adulthood crime rates across different countries which have different histories of leaded gasoline usage, you notice that the correlation persists. While of course correlation does not imply causation, it's a link that's fairly well-established in literature, it's not a spurious correlation, and we know that lead has concrete neurological effects, so it's plausible from a pharmacological basis.

[throwawaycities]

Since 1970 testosterone has declined 1% per year and it’s well established higher testosterone is linked to impulsive and violent criminal behavior and in countries like the US crime rate is at a 50 year low correlating with this decline starting 1970.

There are many factors that correlate and potentially contribute to a reduction in incarceration rates.

There are estimated 1.8-1.9M incarcerated. Since 1980 to the present there are well over 1M violent crimes (rape, murder, aggregated assault, robbery) per year. Let’s look at another factor that might contribute to falling incarceration rates that tend to explain this discrepancy in incarceration vs total crimes…conviction rates:

Murder: ~57.4% in 1950 vs. ~27.2% in 2023—a ~2.1x difference.

Rape: ~17.3% in 1950 vs. ~2.3% in 2023—a ~7.5x difference.

Aggravated Assualt: ~19.7% in 1950 vs. ~15.9% in 2023—a ~1.2x difference.

The neurological effects of lead don’t tend to explain away falling police clearances nor convictions.

[qingcharles]

Where are these conviction rate statistics from? What are they measuring? (is it reporting of crime to a conviction on that crime?)