Leaded petrol was removed from British engines later than in North America - and the crime rate in the UK began to fall later than in the US and Canada.
Lead theorists say that data they've collated and calculated from each nation shows the same 20-year trend - the sooner lead is removed from the environment, the sooner crime will begin to fall.
Dr Bernard Gesch says the data now suggests that lead could account for as much as 90% of the changing crime rate during the 20th Century across all of the world.
"A lot of people would say that correlation isn't cause," he says. "But it seems that the more the exposure, the more extreme the behaviour. I'm certainly not saying that lead is the only explanation why crime is falling - but it is certainly the most persuasive. Unless someone is telling us that the brain is not involved in decision-making then lead has to be relevant to crime."
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