Yes, lead poisoning could really be a cause of violent crime

[happyslug]

83. Prior to 1935 we had NO national data base for crime

A private group started one in the 1920s, Congress told the FBI to take it over in 1930 and the FBI finally issued they first report in 1935. Thus anything about crime prior to that date is the result of people going back to the historical records and reconstructing the crime data. The problem with this is many courts did not keep what we would call records unless the Defendant was brought up on charges, and even then keeping a record of what happened in the court during a trial was NOT common practice till the late 1800s. Thus none of the data is reliable.

As to post 1935 records, we have problems. Congress did NOT require local police forces to report crimes to the FBI, they could if they wanted to, but no one required them to do so. Thus a lot of local police forces just did not do it. Now, in the post WWII era, Police started to get money from the Federal Government, while Congress still did NOT require local police to report crime data to the FBI, it started to local to local Police forces if they did, they had a better chance of getting Federal Funds, thus you had increase in the number of Police Departments participating. Thus the only reliable numbers we have for crime is post 1945.

Your last graph has an inherent error in it, it shows an increase in murders done by 14-17 years old and 18-24 years old, as those populations were dropping (i.e. you had less and less 14-24 years old per 100,000 people after 1984). This was known at that time and was why Social Security was changed in the early 1980s, to prepare Social Security when the then over 24 year old baby boomers start to get on Social Security around 2015 (62 years after the start of the baby boom in 1947).

Furthermore, if you read the article, the authors accepted that data was unreliable prior to WWII AND their basis was comparing numbers issued by the FBI and Lead gasoline sales, with a 23 year gap.

You should read the Mother Jones article, the paper cited does reference it, but here is a direct link to it:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline