Toxins Can Be Source Of Crime, Professor Says

LAKELAND - There's a new cog in the age-old argument of nature versus nurture.

Nature proponents will say criminals were born as troublemakers while nurture advocates argue that it's a person's environment that leads them to a life of crime.

But what if there was another ingredient?

Kim Lersch, a criminology professor at the University of South Florida, says toxic contaminants influence criminal behavior.

Her research, published in the second edition of her book "Space, Time and Crime," suggests exposure to lead, for example, causes irreversible brain damage, violence and impulsive behavior.

"Property crime rates, homicide rates, as much as 20 percent can be traced to the environment," said Lersch, who lives in Brooksville.

The data leads her to believe that fighting crime in polluted areas is fruitless without first cleaning up the tainted area.

It might also open some insight into why crime seems to collect in lower-income neighborhoods. Poor, minority areas are frequently the dumping grounds for waste in what are "superfund" sites, Lersch said.

Her research brings to mind the former Department of Public Works compound on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. People who live in that area, which carries a reputation for drug dealing, claim that years of pollution on the site have made them sick.

Lersch said it's a "typical example" of her research, but that area was not part of her research.

Conversely, though, could an upper-class gated community suffer a crime wave if the drinking water was tainted with arsenic?

Sure, but Lersch is careful to point out that contaminants are not the only factors at play in regards to crime. Some communities have stronger social parameters that keep deviant behavior in check, she said.

"There are neighbors watching neighbors," she said.