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Temperature and Violence

I can remember my dad saying not to bother to lock up because it was so cold outside that even the theives are home keeping warm.
 
After taking a look at the posted link with the research, it seems to mesh with the actual experience in our local spouse abuse shelter, where I often heard the staff musing about the higher number of women and children coming in on the warmest days. Those comments came nearly 20 years ago, by the way.
 
The Vampire said:
"Murders increase when the temperature reaches 92 degrees F."

True or woo?
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One of my favorite Siouxsie and the Banshees songs, and she's a skeptic to boot! (see placebo effect lyrics for evidence)

92 Degrees

The day drags by like a wounded animal
The approaching disease, 92 degrees
The blood oin our veins and the brains in our head
The approaching unease, 92 degrees
Long ago in the headlines, they noticed it too
But too late for the loved ones and nearly for you .....

Shaky lines on the horizon
Snakey lines invade each person
Watch the red line creeping upwards
Watch the sanity line weaken
The volcanic depths of Hades' ocean
Bubble under, these crazed eruptions
It wriggles and wrythes and bites within,
Just below the sweating sun

I wondered when this would happen again
Now I watch the red line, reach that number again
The blood in our veins and the brains in our head .....

Drink the water with jagged glass
Eat the cactus with bleeding mouth
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

Shaky lines on the horizon
Snakey lines invade each person
Not 91 or 93, but 92 Fahrenheit degrees

Withnail
 
If we're doing lyrics, then The Boomtown Rats once sung "Most killing is committed at ninety degrees".

Obviously some quibbling over details between Bob Geldof and Siouxsie Sioux.
 
Lots of things to wonder about, if it's true. Is it absolute, or relative? Are people in equatorial climates more violent year-round than people in arctic climates, because it's above 92 degrees most of the time? Or do people in arctic climates start getting violent when the temperature gets above 65 degrees, because that seems relatively hot to them?
 
The Vampire said:
"Murders increase when the temperature reaches 92 degrees F."

True or woo?
Click to expand...

Probably about as true as the 'full moon effect'.

Having said that, coming from Newcastle, England (55 degrees north), I'm hardly qualified to comment. I think we reached 94F in 1991. Average July temp is around 66F :(
 
John Jackson said:
Probably about as true as the 'full moon effect'.

Having said that, coming from Newcastle, England (55 degrees north), I'm hardly qualified to comment. I think we reached 94F in 1991. Average July temp is around 66F :(
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Bah....John, I really think there could be something to it here in the US (at least where it hit's the 90's and 100's). When it is really hot and humid, people tend to come outdoors and, as a result, interact more. A lot of the folks that can't afford air conditioning have to get out of the house to escape the heat. They interact. They fight. There are more violent incidents.

That said, a lot of areas that have high summer temps. can easily get to -10 or -15 in the winter and people stay in more.

No real evidence to back that up. Just my personal and police ossifer experience.
 
I know that my desire to pummel a few people certainly goes up as it gets hotter. Over 95F and you'd better get nowhere near me.

~~ Paul
 
I won't disagree Mr. Skinny.

I suspected, although I have nothing to back it up with, that people living in hot climates would be acclimatised to it.

Of course the USA has a much bigger temperature variance than we do in the UK.

90+F would lay me out - way too hot! :D
 
In poor "urban" environments, it was always sort of the custom for everyone to be out on hot nights, sitting on porches, drinking, whatever. This (so the theory goes) led to more "interaction" amongst neighbors, especially on weekends where the numbers of intoxicated, the loud music, etc. all contribute to the potential for fights.
Most law enforcement officers who have been around for a while would say this was true, although there is plenty of "woo" in police lore. The full moon thing is widely accepted....

I did not find this to be the case in the upscale suburban areas I worked with the local county PD, most of our weekend violence was domestic, or in bars.
 
From the FBI's 2004 Uniform Crime Report found at:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/index.html

Violent Crime by Month
Percent Distribution, 2000-2004
Month ---- 2000 ----- 2001 ----- 2002 ----- 2003 ----- 2004
January ------ 7.9 ----- 7.7 ----- 7.9 ----- 7.8 ----- 7.8
February ----- 7.2 ----- 6.7 ----- 6.8 ----- 6.4 ----- 7
March ------- 8.1 ----- 7.9 ----- 7.9 ----- 8.2 ----- 8.3
April --------- 8.1 ----- 8.1 ----- 8.1 ----- 8.3 ----- 8.2
May --------- 8.9 ----- 8.7 ----- 8.7 ----- 8.9 ----- 9
June -------- 8.6 ----- 8.7 ----- 8.8 ----- 8.8 ----- 8.6
July --------- 9.3 ----- 9.3 ----- 9.3 ----- 9.2 ----- 9.2
August ------ 9.1 ----- 8.9 ----- 9.3 ----- 9.2 ----- 9
September -- 8.6 ----- 8.7 ----- 9.2 ----- 8.6 ----- 8.5
October ----- 8.7 ----- 9 ----- 8.6 ----- 8.8 ----- 8.6
November --- 7.8 ----- 8.2 ----- 7.7 ----- 7.9 ----- 7.8
December --- 7.7 ----- 8.1 ----- 7.7 ----- 7.8 ----- 7.9


There is an obvious seasonal trend in this table where the unadjusted rate of violent crime increases in the summer months and decreases in the winter months...

Whether you ascribe to a woo (astrology/full moon) or rational explanation (heat increases irritability) for the above trend, it does exist...

Sorry about the bad formatting, I'm still learning how to post correctly...
 
Could it be something like say house burglary might increase in the summer because people leave their windows open and tend to be out more because the weather is nice whereas in the Winter they're indoors more and leave the windows shut. Maybe violent crime increases because there's more people out and about, more outdoor events and more social interaction than during the winter? Just an idea.
 
Basically, research shows that violent crimes and civil unrest occur more often on hot days than on cold days.

Here's a good start if you're interested in the topic:

CA Anderson, Heat and Violence
in Current Directions in Psychological Science
Volume 10 Page 33 - February 2001

From the abstract:

The heat hypothesis states that hot temperatures can increase aggressive motives and behaviors. Although alternative explanations occasionally account for some portion of the observed increases in aggression when temperatures are high, none are sufficient to account for most such heat effects. Hot temperatures increase aggression by directly increasing feelings of hostility and indirectly increasing aggressive thoughts.
Click to expand...
 
You have to factor in alcohol in there somewhere surely. Nice warm nights...football is on now (do Carling still sponsor the Premiership?), have a few beers...get tanked up...be a bit more predisposed to violence?

Would also agree to the the point that when it's warm there are simply more people out there mingling. I remember an episode of "Cops", with one officer driving through the rain saying how things quietened down when the weather worsened because the everyone would rather be indoors than out there "doin' stuff"
 
WildCat and GreyPilgrim, of course I agree that the mere fact that more people are out on the streets when it's hot has to do with the increase in violence. However, the phenomenon has been replicated in the laboratory (e.g. by Griffitt & Veitch 1971; Anderson, Anderson & Deuser 1996): People in a hot room described feeling more aggressive and showed more hostility than the control groups.

Edited to add link:

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/1995-1999/96AAD.PDF
 
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I know when it's really hot. I get pissed off.

The most basic explanation would be that in nice weather, people are out of their homes more and are interacting more, which leads inevitably to more violence. In the winter, when people are confined at home, it leads to more children nine months later.
 
Possibly the 92 F idea got started with a Ray Bradbury short story from waaaaay back when. His thesis was that at 91 F you could still control yourself, and at 93 F it was too hot to bother getting violent. Hence 92 was a dangerous temperature, and what little action there was in the story followed from that.
 
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