General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Yes, lead poisoning could really be a cause of violent crime [View all]happyslug
(14,779 posts)When surveys of the general population are made, the reports of non-violent crime are MUCH higher then what is reported to the FBI via the local police. Violent crimes are reported more often to the Police AND recorded by the Police (a lot of Police Departments have institutional resistance to taking reports of non-violent crime, investigating such crimes do NOT help their budgets or their prestige thus a low priority). On top of the low police priority, a lot of people just find it is a waste of time to report such non-violent crime to the police, so they just do not do it.
Violent Crimes, especially murder, have much higher reporting rates to the Police (and much higher rates of being handled by the Police). Thus the problem with your statistics may be a reporting error, it is dependent on people reporting a crime AND the police recording the crime. The rates of both are much higher for Violent Crime (and most accurate for Murder) then for non-violent crimes.