Temperature and Violent Crime in Dallas, Texas: Relationships and Implications of Climate Change

INTRODUCTION To investigate relationships between ambient temperatures and violent crimes to determine whether those relationships are consistent across different crime categories and whether they are best described as increasing linear functions, or as curvilinear functions that decrease beyond some temperature threshold. A secondary objective was to consider the implications of the observed relationships for injuries and deaths from violent crimes in the context of a warming climate. To address these questions, we examined the relationship between daily ambient temperatures and daily incidents of violent crime in Dallas, Texas from 1993-1999. METHODS We analyzed the relationships between daily fluctuations in ambient temperature, other meteorological and temporal variables, and rates of daily violent crime using time series piece-wise regression and plots of daily data. Violent crimes, including aggravated assault, homicide, and sexual assault, were analyzed. RESULTS We found that daily mean ambient temperature is related in a curvilinear fashion to daily rates of violent crime with a positive and increasing relationship between temperature and aggravated crime that moderates beyond temperatures of 80°F and then turns negative beyond 90°F. CONCLUSION While some have characterized the relationship between temperature and violent crime as a continually increasing linear function, leaving open the possibility that aggravated crime will increase in a warmer climate, we conclude that the relationship in Dallas is not linear, but moderates and turns negative at high ambient temperatures. We posit that higher temperatures may encourage people to seek shelter in cooler indoor spaces, and that street crime and other crimes of opportunity are subsequently decreased. This finding suggests that the higher ambient temperatures expected with climate change may result in marginal shifts in violent crime in the short term, but are not likely to be accompanied by markedly higher rates of violent crime and associated increased incidence of injury and death. Additional studies are indicated, across cities at varying latitudes that experience a range of daily ambient temperatures.