The Impact of Weather and Seasonality on Violence – Comparing Civilian Communities to Prisons

• In Event: Biosocial Development and Offending

Abstract

Hotter weather is correlated with a higher occurrence of violent events, compared to colder weather (Simister & Cooper, 2004; Rotton & Cohn, 2000). This correlation was previously explained using two mechanisms: according to the physiological mechanism, heat affects the secretion of adrenaline, which in turn contributes to elevated aggressiveness. Conversely, the routine activity model suggests that a hotter weather contributes to the prevalence of violence by increasing the time spent in public space, in which violent conflict is more likely.
The prison environment allows testing both physiological and social factors by considering the unusual social conduct of prisons: activity during the day does not vary throughout the year, and the intensity of social activity is set by prison policies rather than by the length of the day or the weather. Hence, seasonality in prison violence cannot be attributed to routine activity factors. Contrarily, the physiological effects inside prison should be similar to the same effects outside, in similar climate conditions.
We tested both models using all violent events reported in prisons on the course of several years by the Israeli Prison Service and violence reported to the Israel Police in urban areas in proximity to prisons in Israel.

Author

• Tomer Carmel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem