BRIT.J. CRIMINOL. VOL.32 NO. 3 SUMMER 1992 THE EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON CRIME

An analysis of annual, quarterly, and monthly data for recorded crime in England and Wales yielded strong evidence that temperature has a positive effect on most types of property and violent crime. The effect was independent of seasonal variation. No relationship between crime and rainfall or hours of sunshine emerged in the study. The main explanation advanced is that in England and Wales higher temperatures cause people to spend more time outside the home. Time spent outside the home, in line with routine activity explanations for crime, has been shown to increase the risk of criminal victimization for most types of crime. The results suggest that temperature is one of the main factors to be taken into account when explaining quarter-to-quarter and month-to-month variations in recorded crime. Recent reviews of the literature on temperature and aggression (Anderson 1989) and on crime and the weather (Cohn 1990) have underlined the impressive range of evidence that temperature has a positive relation to violent crime and other types of aggressive behaviour. Thus Anderson quotes studies by Lombroso (1911), Brearley (1932), Defronzo (1984), and Rosenfeld (1986) reporting an association between violent crime and latitude. More directly, Anderson (1987) describes an association between violent crime and warm climates. Anderson's (1989) review paper describes the almost universal finding in the literature that violent crimes are more common during the hotter seasons and months of the year. More significantly, studies by Dexte