High ambient temperatures are associated with urban crime risk in Chicago

Kun Hou; Liqiang Zhang; Xia Xu; Feng Yang; Baozhang Chen; Wei Hu; Rui Shu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158846

High ambient temperatures are associated with urban crime risk in Chicago

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Jan 15;856(Pt 1):158846. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158846. Epub 2022 Sep 17.

Authors

Kun Hou¹, Liqiang Zhang², Xia Xu³, Feng Yang⁴, Baozhang Chen⁵, Wei Hu⁶, Rui Shu⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Remote Sensing and Geomatics Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China. Electronic address: kunhou@nuist.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
³ Jiangsu Province Hydrology and Water Resources Investigation Bureau, Nanjing 210029, China.
⁴ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁵ School of Remote Sensing and Geomatics Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
⁶ College of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, Zhejiang, China.
⁷ School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China.

PMID: 36122719
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158846

Abstract

Urban crime (UC) seriously affects the security and stability of the communities and society. However, the effects of external temperatures on the risk of UC are still confusing. We quantitatively estimated the effects of high and low temperatures on UC in Chicago. After controlling for the confounding factors, we found that high temperature has a positive promoting effect on UC, for non-domestic crime, the effect occurs at lag day 0 with a maximum risk of 1.40 (95%CI, 1.34-1.46) compared to a risk of 1 at temperature of -12.3 °C, and decreased as the lag day increased. The effect of low temperature is not significant for UC. Heat waves above the 99th percentile with a duration of 4.5-5.5 days exert a significant positive impact on non-domestic crime of UC. Our findings confirm the adverse promotion effect of high temperature on UC risk, and effective individual behavior guidance and administrative intervention are of great significance for reducing the risk of UC under specific high temperature environment.

Keywords: Heat waves; High temperatures; Lag effect; Risk; Urban crime.

MeSH terms

Chicago / epidemiology
Cold Temperature*
Crime
Hot Temperature*
Temperature