Global Warming and U.S. Crime Rates

Abstract

Two archival analyses were performed to examine the association between annual temperatures and U.S. crime rates. The first was based on area-averaged temperatures in the United States as a whole for the years 1950 through 1999. Box-Jenkins time-series analyses indicated that annual temperatures were associated with assault but not murder rates in analyses that controlled for yearly population, ethnicity, and three economic variables. The second analysis was based on state-centered crime rates from 1960 through 1998 and included the same controls. Contrary to the general aggression model, cross-sectional time-series analyses indicated that annual temperatures were associated with rates for assault, rape, robbery, burglary, and larceny, but not murder or motor vehicle theft. The results are consistent with a routine activity theory interpretation of everyday and criminal behavior.

The Influence of Interannual Climate Variability on Regional Violent Crime Rates in the United States

“…Investigations at the scale of individual cities, such as Dallas, TX (Gamble & Hess, 2012); St. Louis, MO (Mares, 2013a;Mares, 2013b); Philadelphia, PA (Schinasi & Hamra, 2017); and Tangshan, China (Hu et al, 2017), have uniformly demonstrated a positive relationship between temperature and violent crime. Still, other studies have produced similar findings at a broader scale, either by examining a conglomeration of data at the city or county level in the United States (Hipp et al, 2004;Jacob et al, 2007;Ranson, 2014), New Zealand (Horrocks & Menclova, 2011;Williams et al, 2015), or South Africa (Bruederle et al, 2017), or by examining annual, nationally aggregated data for the United States (Anderson et al, 1997;Rotton & Cohn, 2003), Finland (Tiihonen et al, 2017), Malaysia (Habibullah, 2017), England and Wales (Field, 1992), or multiple countries around the globe (Mares & Moffett, 2016 between different crime types is a common conclusion (e.g., Rotton & Cohn, 2003), though aggravated and simple assault consistently yield the strongest relationship with temperature.…”

“…In addition to strong support for a relationship between temperature and violent crime, a wide variety of studies have uncovered robust positive relationships between temperature and property crime (Cohn & Rotton, 2000;Field, 1992;Hipp et al, 2004;Horrocks & Menclova, 2011;Jacob et al, 2007;Ranson, 2014;Rotton & Cohn, 2003). For example, Cohn and Rotton (2000) examined property crime in Minneapolis, MN, and determined "temperature also emerged as a significant predictor of property offences" and that "Minneapolis police received more reports about [property crimes] during warm than during cool or cold periods."…”

The relationship between temperature and assault in New Zealand

“…One method is to aggregate data (e.g., at the annual level), such that the effects of seasonal variation are removed. A series of studies using this approach and data from the United States found a positive relationship between temperature and violent crime (Anderson et al 1997(Anderson et al , 2000Anderson and DeLisi 2011;Rotton and Cohn 2003). Another way in which irregular variation in temperature can be examined is by using data at a finer temporal level of aggregation (e.g., by using days or even shorter intervals), but using temporal control variables (e.g., for the months of the year) to remove seasonal variation.…”

“…Another study that did explicitly consider climate change was Rotton and Cohn (2003). Cohn and Rotton analysed both US national data as well as cross-sectional time series assault data aggregated at state level (for 1960-1998).…”

How victim age affects the context and timing of child sexual abuse: applying the routine activities approach to the first sexual abuse incident

“…The routine activities approach has been successfully applied to other forms of crime prevention, particularly property crime (Fisher et al 1998;Kennedy and Forde 1990;Meithe et al 1987;Rotton and Cohn 2003) and more recently cybercrime (e.g., Pratt et al 2010;Reyns et al 2011). Empirical evidence also exists for the utility of the routine activities approach for explaining personal victimization (Kennedy and Forde 1990;Stathura and Sloan 1988), including violence against women (Rodgers and Roberts 1995) and sexual assault against adults (Cass 2007;Franklin et al 2012;Jackson et al 2006;Schwartz and Pitts 1995).…”