The research question of the first article seeks to understand the long-term daily effects of weather and climate, along with the specific change in monthly crime patterns and how climate change may affect the future rates of crime in the United States. The article discusses Becker’s “model of crime,” in which people choose whether or not to participate in criminal behaviors based upon the pros and cons of the situation- weather being an obvious factor in this decision. The article also brings up increased temperature as a possible factor in causing aggression, with the increase in crime as a consequence. Lastly, the social interaction theory of crime was used, in which nice weather may cause people to interact more often and thus cause an increase in criminal activity and crime rates. UCR monthly crime data between the years 1960 and 2010 was used for this study, along with the maximum temperature and daily amount precipitation were used. The patterns between these two data sets were used in order to draw conclusions. It was found that weather has a strong effect on crime rates on a month by month basis, as well as high temperature does generally lead to higher rates in crime. The article answers it’s research question by concluding that climate change will indeed have a strong impact on the increase in crime rates in the United States. These results directly answer my research question of whether or not weather would have an effect on crime, as well as answering what these effects would be.
The second article used focuses on the country of New Zealand, and asks if weather is a factor in their rates of crime. The article seeks to understand if weather may simply increase the likelihood of the individual getting caught while participating in criminal behavior, or if nicer weather makes it easier for them to travel, therefore increase the possibility that they may commit crime. Similar to the previous article, the article also discusses the possibility of an increase in crime due to the aggression brought on by high temperatures. Lastly, weather may have an effect on the police officer’s ability to witness criminal activity. The data used for this research came New Zealand Police department’s daily crime reports regarding violent and property crimes. Weather data was taken from the closest police departments as each set of Crime data, and analyzed with the annual population as the control variable. According to the results of the article, weather does indeed have a significant impact upon the rates of crime for both property and violent. However, the article also mentions that this is in relation to daily weather changes, rather than seasons. This directly relates to my research question as well, as it proves that weather has a significant impact on these two types of crime. However, it is worth noting that this article chose to focus on “spontaneous” weather changes rather than change in relation to the seasons.
The third article used researches the question of homicide rates and the changing seasons in the city of San Paulo, Brazil, as well as the relationship between temperature and violent behavior, as well as the specific locations of these behaviors during the hotter months. Little research had been done previously on weather and crime in cities that reach extremely high temperatures in the summer months, and even less spatial analysis had been done on crime in these areas. The article suggests that the increase in criminal behavior in the summer months was caused by the increase of free time compared to the winter months. The research analyzes the number of homicides in an area, the temperature and humidity, along with the time of day in which the crime had occurred. The results of the article show that homicides indeed do occur most often during the weekends and in the summer months, when people have the most time off. The article also found that times of day are much more likely to correlated to crime rates than temperature. This answers my research question in regards to the relationship between weather and crime rates. In addition to this, it also addresses the increased free time during the summer month as an explanation for the increase in homicide rates, which is another topic that I had related to my research question.
The fourth article researches the relationship between aggressive crime and weather in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The main purpose of this article was to discover whether or not summer weather temperature is correlated with aggressive crime. The article discusses theories regarding the increase in violent crime in correlation with the increase in weather temperature. One theory analyzed, titled the “Negative Effect Escape Model,” implies that heat will cause less aggression, as the individual will prioritize escaping the heat, and therefore will not be in a position to commit criminal activity. The data for this study was collected from from the Cleveland Police Department, with temporal, spatial, and daily weather data was collected from the National Climatic Weather Center. The different data sets were analyzed to look for patterns between them. The analysis found that summer had the highest crime rates, while winter had the lowest. Nonaggravent assault and domestic violence also rose more dramatically in relation to the weather than general aggressive crime. The spatial patterns of crime were not as influenced by the weather, which was interesting as the article regarding crime in San Paulo had conflicting results. This relates to my article, as it answers my research question on whether or not summer weather affects crime. However, unlike my research question, this article focuses more on the spatial and temporal weather data, rather than on the changing seasons.
The next article recognizes the relationship between warm weather and increased crime rates, but wishes to better correlation this relationship and answer the question of whether or not there is a strong relationship between weather and crime. The article is less focused on criminal theories and more focused on the data results in order to answer this question. Several publications regarding the relationship between heat and aggressive crime were used as a background to the study. UCR violent and nonviolent crime data was acquired and used for this study, and well as locations from multiple locations in the world. Temperatures of these locations along with sunlight and rainfall were analysed along with the crime data. The results of this study were found to have both positive and negative correlations. Similar to other studies, high temperatures, violent crime, and property crime all had a positive correlation, though the long-term impact had less correlation than the short-term impact. This relates to my research question not only with the correlation between crime and weather, but also with the analysis and results from long-term and short-term weather. My research question focuses more on long-term weather based on the seasons, which was included in this study.
The next article examines whether or not there is a relationship between weather, crime, and income in developing countries, specifically in India. The costs and benefits of decisions that individuals make when participating in criminal activity are analyzed in this article. Crime data from various districts in India between the years 1970 and 2000 are used to conduct this study, as well as weather data from a large temporal range. There was shown to be an increase in crime in areas that had little rainfall, and more sunlight. Property crime rates increase more with the sunlight more than any other crime type. The article also found that crime and weather correlations remain fairly stable despite any economic differences within neighborhoods. The research question used in this article relates to my article as it not only examines the relationship between weather and crime, it also looks at a larger range of variables, particularly economic differences between neighborhoods, to see if this affects the change along with the weather.
The next article attempts to examine whether there is a relationship between weather, crime, and geographic location in the UK, rather than just on weather and crime alone. The article also discusses the media and their increase in crime coverage in the summertime as well. They also look at whether rain may or may not damper the amounts of calls for service received by police departments. The study used statistical analysis between weather reports and calls for service received, as well as the use of Geographic Information Systems in order to locate weather patterns and calls for service on a map. The study found that there are significant correlations between violent crime and high temperatures. Unlike other studies, this article found that rainfall and humidity do not have a significant effect on the levels of crime. This relates to my research question as it determines that high temperatures do indeed cause higher rates of crime. Similarly, it brings up other theories such as the media’s increase in coverage during the summertime.
The last article asks the question of whether or not there is a correlation between weather and calls for domestic violence. More specifically, if the weather patterns are able to predict calls for domestic violence. Based upon the information gathered from previous studies, the article discussed how calls for domestic violence were considerably more frequent when temperatures were higher rather than lower, which is contradictory to another study analyzed in which temperature calls were the same regardless of weather. The number of domestic violence calls to the Minneapolis Police Department were used, and were grouped into four six-hour intervals in order to analyze along with four types of weather conditions. The study found that in the evening, when the temperature was warmer, fewer calls for service were occurring. There were less calls for domestic violence when the sky was brightest. The darker it was, the more calls there would be. This relates to my research question, in that it analyzes violent activity and reports to law enforcement based on weather patterns during this time.