Juvenile arrest rates for blacks falling faster than for whites.
Kevin Drum provides still more data on the lead/crime connection, specifically with respect to African-American juveniles. Arrest rates for black kids have been falling faster than arrest rates for white kids, in part because blacks had more lead exposure and therefore benefited more as exposures fell.
It’s frustrating how much more willing “conservatives” are to use crime as a stick with which to beat black people than to do something about it. (See also: fetal alcohol.)
But maybe if Kevin keeps pounding this drum for another decade or so something will start to happen.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
I can’t pass up the opportunity to commend Mark on his exceptional Kevin Drum pun nestled within this post.
You beat me to it.
And now Keith has made one, too! The RBC is on fire, today.
I don’t expect anyone to believe this, but that was unintentional.
Maybe I’m naive, but I believe it. The very best puns are unintentional, or at the least carried off without cuing. This one was a bang-up job.