No retreat from the heat: temperature-related risk of violent assault is increased by being inside

ABSTRACT

Studies finding an association between increasing temperature and violent crime have largely overlooked the potential effect modification of crime location. This study analysed 13 years of reported violent crime to investigate if there is a relationship between daily ambient temperature and crime type (domestic, non-domestic and sexual assault), and how this differs by whether the crime occurred inside or out. We found that predicted daily counts of domestic violence increased with temperature, and this association was greater for locations inside. Non-domestic assaults also increased with higher temperature, however when compared by location the incidents that occurred outside rose to around 30°C then plateaued while inside the risk continued to rise. Sexual assault peaked and then declined at around 30°C in inside and outside locations. The findings support the development of prevention and preparedness strategies by considering how the complex drivers behind the temperature–aggression association are modified by the location where it occurred.

KEYWORDS:

• Intimate partner violence
• rape
• premises
• heat
• global warming
• temperature

Acknowledgements

We thank the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research for access to crime data. This research was undertaken with the assistance of resources from the Centre for Air Pollution, Energy and Health Research (CAR) data platform (http://www.car-cre.org.au) and the Collaborative Environment for Scholarly Research and Analysis (CoESRA) https://coesra.tern.org.au

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approvals

The study was approved by Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committee (protocol code 52020230322483 28/04/2017) and conformed to the ethical standards set out in the Declaration of Helsinki