Explaining falling crime levels: Is it all about Prozac? | Hacker News Reader

Explaining falling crime levels: Is it all about Prozac?

economist.com

16 pointscwan9 comments

I disagree about prozac as a cause.

My hypothesis is that the elimination of leaded gas resulted in a new generation growing up without the brain damage caused by chronic lead poisoning. Elevated lead levels have been well documented as causing reduced IQ and raised anti-social behaviors.

>Lead pollution is dispersed into the air and into the vicinity of roads. Lead is a toxic metal that accumulates and has subtle and insidious neurotoxic effects especially at low exposure levels, such as low IQ and antisocial behavior. It has particularly deleterious effects on children. These concerns eventually led to the ban on TEL in automobile gasoline in many countries. For the entire U.S. population, during and after the TEL phaseout, the mean blood lead level dropped from 13 μg/dL in 1976 to only 3 μg/dL in 1991.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetra-ethyl_lead

Prozac? I doubt it. The bulk of homicides have always occurred in the inner cities, and those people would be the last to get their hands on prescription pharmaceuticals.

Its possible Prozac had some effect on more suburbanized areas of the country, but I think its doubtful that any change from prescription drugs would be statistically relevant to the tune of a 12% total drop.

Any drop in homicide rates in the inner cities almost certainly comes from another source, and my money is on political manipulation of the data.

As an example, the Baltimore mayor's office came under fire in 2006 for tweaking their crime numbers, and I'm sure that other large cities aren't immune from the same pressures.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02...

I think you'll find a very low co-incidence rate of criminals getting psychiatric treatment, let alone psycho-pharmaceuticals on a regular basis.

Honestly, the very premise of the research makes me wonder whether this is an example of research ghost-written by big pharma.

From the premise, you could also suggest that it was written by a proponent of more federal spending for mental health (e.g. Mental Health Parity Act).

They only thing you can state with confidence is that it is not a good paper.

"I think you'll find a very low co-incidence rate of criminals getting psychiatric treatment, let alone psycho-pharmaceuticals on a regular basis."

That's perfectly consistent with the hypothesis that treatment prevents people from becoming criminals.

Unless the number of people receiving treatment hasn't gone up accordingly.

And specifically: the number of people matching the socioeconomic profile of the people who were committing the crimes that have seen such a sharp drop.

I believe I read it in Freakanomics that lower crime levels in recent years were due to the defacto legalization of abortion.

edit: oops I guess I should read the post (which actually mentions this) before commenting.

I thought I read somewhere that Prozac or other SSRI's were ending up in our water supply from treated waste. I'm not sure the logistics of that, or where I read it but it could be a factor?

"A CURE FOR CRIME? PSYCHO-PHARMACEUTICALS AND CRIME TRENDS"

This is a very poor title for an academic paper.

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