Ban on leaded petrol ‘has cut crime rates around the world’

Banning lead in petrol is responsible for declining crime rates in Britain, the United States and other countries, startling new research suggests.

The astonishing conclusion threatens to overturn current thinking on crime and punishment. And it could undermine the reputations of leading politicians, including Rudy Giuliani, the frontrunning Republican presidential candidate, who is basing much of his appeal on the reduction of crime in New York City in the 1990s, when he served as mayor.


Published in the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Research, the study reports a “very strong association” over more than 50 years between the exposure of young children to the toxic metal and crime rates 20 years later when they are young adults.

And it says the association holds true for a wide variety of countries with differing social conditions, law and order policies.

The Independent