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Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 2004, Vol 45 (June): 214-229
This study investigates the association between air-lead levels and crime rates across 2,772 U.S. counties. Data for the analysis come from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Census, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Results suggest that air-lead levels have a direct effect on property and violent crime rates even after adjusting for general levels of air pollution and several structural covariates of crime. We also find that resource deprivation interacts with air-lead levels. The association between air-lead levels and crime rates-property and violent-is strongest in counties that have high levels of resource deprivation and weakest in counties that have low levels of deprivation. This interaction is consistent with arguments and evidence in the health care literature that populations most at risk of lead poisoning are least likely to get the resources required to prevent, screen, and treat the illness.
Contemporary research suggests that lead exposure is a potential source of crime and delinquency (Denno 1990; Needleman et al. 1996; Nevin 2000; Pihl and Ervin 1990). However, indicators of the geographic distribution of lead have not been analyzed as a structural covariate of crime. The omission of lead from the analysis of crime rates is unexpected for four reasons. First, lead alters neurotransmitter and hormonal systems in a way that may induce aggressive and violent behavior (Needleman et al. 1996). Moreover, some medical researchers believe that as much as 20 percent of all crime is lead-associated (Needleman 1990:87). Consequently, people living in areas with elevated lead concentrations may be exposed to environmental conditions that possess the potential to stimulate aggressive behaviors such as crime and delinquency.
Second, a moderate sized literature examines how biological and sociological factors interact to affect crime (e.g., Fishbein 1990; Booth and Osgood 1993). In that tradition, it has long been asserted that the study of crime must be interdisciplinary, combining disciplines such as sociology and biology (Jeffrey 1985). The study of lead and crime at the aggregate level of analysis is consistent with both approaches.
Third, there is considerable variation in the geographic distribution of lead and crime across time and space (Nevin 2000; Stretesky and Lynch 2001). It is plausible that the spatial distribution of...