CJCJ authors have published several provocative studies<\/span><\/a> documenting that teenagers and young adults are no more prone to risk-taking and crime<\/span><\/a> than older adults once the fact 15-24 year-olds are 2-3 times more likely to suffer the economic and environmental harms associated with poverty <\/strong>than middle-agers is taken into account.<\/p>\n We find terms like \u201cadolescent risk taking\u201d and \u201cyouth violence\u201d are misnomers; rather, there are generally elevated risks that accompany worsening socioeconomic disadvantage that carry known physiological risks (the one discussed here is lead poisoning). The few<\/em><\/strong> middle-agers who suffer poverty rates of 15-19%\u2014the average<\/em><\/strong> poverty level of teenagers\u2014display murder, violent, felony, and other crime rates equivalent to teenagers of similar socioeconomic status.<\/p>\n It\u2019s infuriating that modern authorities continue repeating the same mistake\u2014failure to incorporate differences in economic and environmental conditions\u2014concerning crime by young people that their discredited 19th<\/sup> century forbears did regarding crime by race. That despite the fact that most agree poorer populations have higher rates of arrest and crime outcomes than richer ones<\/strong>, a reality well documented when comparing crime rates by race or locale\u2014but, astonishingly, never before researched when comparing younger-age to older-age crime.<\/p>\n Similarly often ignored research by economic consultant Rick Nevin<\/span><\/a> suggests another factor co-occurring with low socioeconomic status that appears highly predictive of crime: lead poisoning<\/strong>. As detailed in our previous blog<\/span><\/a>, blood lead levels more closely track crime rates and trends by generation and race than any other factor we can find. Whether that means lead toxicity is a direct cause\u2014which it appears to be\u2014or is the best representative of a family of risk factors associated with poverty demands intensive analysis.<\/p>\n