Seasonal Variation in Homicide and Assault Across Large U.S. Cities

McDowall, David; Curtis, Karise M.

doi:10.1177/1088767914536985

Cited by 36 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Mares () found strong positive relationships between crime and expected monthly temperatures. This is further confirmed by direct examination of seasonality, such as in recent studies by Carbone‐Lopez and Lauritsen () and McDowall and Curtis (). Put simply, crime has a strong seasonality that needs to be properly accounted for in any examination of the relationship between weather and crime.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

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

Harp

Karnauskas

2018

GeoHealth

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While the impact of climate on regional geopolitical stability and large‐scale conflict has garnered increased visibility in recent years, the effects of climate variability on interpersonal violent crime have received only limited scientific attention. Though earlier studies have established a modest correlation between temperature and violent crime, the underlying seasonality in both variables was often not controlled for and spatial heterogeneity of the statistical relationships has largely been overlooked. Here a method of spatial aggregation is applied to the United States, enabling a systematic investigation into the observed relationships between large‐scale climate variability and regionally aggregated crime rates. This novel approach allows for differentiation between the effects of two previously proposed mechanisms linking climate and violent crime, the Routine Activities Theory and Temperature‐Aggression Hypothesis. Results indicate large and statistically significant positive correlations between the interannual variability of wintertime air temperature and both violent and property crime rates, with negligible correlations emerging from summertime data. Results strongly support the Routine Activities Theory linking climate and violent crime, with climate variability explaining well over a third of the variance of wintertime violent crime in several broad regions of the United States. Finally, results motivate the development of observationally constrained empirical models and their potential application to seasonal and potentially longer‐term forecasts.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

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

Harp

Karnauskas

2018

GeoHealth

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“…Evidence arguing against this approach though is the fact that assaults and homicides may differ in general trends (McDowall & Curtis, 2015). It is also the case that homicides are often examined because they are viewed as more reliable measures of violent crime due to differential reporting (Loftin & McDowall, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the model can undoubtedly be improved, we take this as a simplified baseline model, not unlike fixed effects models used in prior research (McDowall & Curtis, 2015; McDowall & Loftin, 2009). The random effects model has the added benefit over the fixed effects model of shrinking future predictions.…”

Section: Time Series Fan Charts For Within-city Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring Volatile Homicide Trends Across U.S. Cities

Wheeler

Kovandzic

2017

Homicide Studies

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While U.S. homicide rates remain at near historical lows, large percentage increases in homicide in 2015 have generated much speculation about its causes among policy makers, academics, criminal justice practitioners, media representatives, and other social commentators. In this article, we show how two data visualization tools, funnel charts, and time series fan charts can show the typical volatility in homicide rates in different cities over time. Many of the recent increases are not out of the norm given historical patterns, and so one need not rely on various ex ante hypotheses to explain homicide spikes occurring in many U.S. cities.

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“…While some reported increased homicide rates during summer months (e.g., Ceccato, 2005;McDowall et al, 2012), others have not found support for a seasonal pattern (e.g., Abel, Strasburger, & Zeidenberg, 1985;Yan, 2000). McDowall and Curtis (2015) also identified a December spike in homicides that nearly reached the July peak.…”

Section: Temporal and Temperature Variations Of Violent Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

Predictive Extrinsic Factors in Multiple Victim Shootings

Ruderman

Cohn

2020

J Primary Prevent

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Although researchers have found support for a relationship between temperature and violence and evidence of temporal patterns in violent crime, research on homicide shows less consistent results and no research on mass murder has been conducted. We address this by examining predictive factors in multi-victim shootings (those with four or more victims, including injured), a more general crime category than mass murder, but one with likely similar predictive factors. We used data from the Gun Violence Archive to understand the relationship between multi-victim shootings and temperature as well as other extrinsic factors. To avoid the confound between season and temperature, we employed temperature anomaly (the difference between actual and expected temperature) as a predictor of daily shooting rate. Using a generalized linear model for the daily count of multi-victim shootings in the U.S., we found that these events are significantly more frequent on weekends, some major holidays, hotter seasons, and when the temperature is higher than usual. Like other crimes, rates of multi-victim shooting vary systematically.

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Seasonal Variation in Homicide and Assault Across Large U.S. Cities

Cited by 36 publications

References 45 publications

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

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

Monitoring Volatile Homicide Trends Across U.S. Cities

Predictive Extrinsic Factors in Multiple Victim Shootings

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