OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 1

The Relationship between Outside Temperature and the Rate of Aggravated Assaults in Los
Angeles, CA: A Correlation Analysis
April 21, 2014












OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 2

Background
Long has it been rumored that humans are more aggressive in higher temperatures.
I aimed to find evidence of this with an analysis of regression and correlation between
aggravated assault charges and monthly averages of the maximum daily temperatures in
Fahrenheit. I chose to not include murders in the charges that I observed. The deeply-
ingrained social conditioning humans have against killing others is less-likely to be
disregarded simply as a result of temperature changes, and the large window of severity
that aggravated assaults encompasses shows finer incremental rises in aggression in the
collective. I did not include non-aggravated assaults, as they are generally not
representative of human aggression. I chose to observe the city of Los Angeles because of
its size (and not coincidentally, availability of historical criminal records) and relatively
high year-round temperatures when compared with the rest of the United States.
Data Collection
I collected annual records from the Los Angeles Police Department and filtered the
aggravated assaults that took place during each year. I then utilized pivot tables to find the
count of incidents that occurred in each month. I divided each months count into the
annual total to get relative percentages and control for the year-over-year growth/decline
in incidents. I then compared these monthly percentages of annual aggravated assaults to
the monthly averages of maximum daily temperature (in Fahrenheit) as found on the
online Los Angeles Almanac (National Weather Service, 2014). While a median value would
be more effective in accounting for outliers (extreme temperatures) this data was not
readily available for such a considerable window of time. I plotted the monthly
OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 3

temperature average (independent) with its associated percentage of annual assaults
(dependent) year by year, and found that the correlation values R & R
2
generally increased
with each addition of the previous year, beginning with 2013. I only had effective crime
records back to 2007, but I believe that the significance of the relationship would increase
with a much larger sample window of time.

When plotted, the points showed a positive linear trend and a relatively consistent
grouping. Months with higher averages of maximum daily temperature seemed to generally
contain a higher percentage of the years annual assaults. The linear regressions equation
essentially says that with every 1 Fahrenheit increase in the average maximum daily
temperature in Los Angeles, we expect the monthly percentage of that years aggravated
assaults to rise by 0.09%. The intercept of 0.0142 suggests that when the average
y = 0.0009x + 0.0142
R=0.6402
R = 0.4098
0.0%
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40.0 45.0 50.0 55.0 60.0 65.0 70.0 75.0 80.0 85.0 90.0
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Monthly Average of Maximum Daily Temperature in Los Angeles
Monthly Percentage of Annual Aggravated Assaults
Increases with Higher Temperatures in Los Angeles from
2007 to 2013
OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 4

maximum daily temperature is 0 for a certain month in Los Angeles, that month would
account for 1.42% of their annual aggravated assaults. This is likely unrealistic and not
practically useful in this case, as environmental conditions extreme as that in LA would
likely be the result of a large environmental disaster and skew the crime rate (e.g., looting,
disputes over limited resources, dissolution of police force). This model would also be
shifted significantly across the X axis if the observations were collected from an area with a
different climate than LA (Boston, Washington D.C., Portland) but I suspect it would still
generally have a positive correlation.
Our observational studys R value of 0.64 indicates a fairly strong positive
relationship between the temperature and the aggravated assault rate in LA, and the R
2

value of 0.41 tells us that 41% of the variation in the monthly aggravated assault rate can
be explained by change in the monthly average of the daily maximum temperature.
Checking our assumptions to verify these results, a plot of the residuals yields a random
distribution across the axis. This tells us that our linear regression is an appropriate model
and not artificially strong. There appear to be no dangerously influential outliers in the
dataset as well.

-0.02
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60.0 65.0 70.0 75.0 80.0 85.0 90.0
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Average of Max Daily Temp in LA (deg F)
Average of Max Daily Temp in LA (deg F) Residual Plot
OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 5

Having confirmed that our model is appropriate, we can answer the question of a
relationship existing between temperature and the aggravated assault rate statistically.
Constructing a hypothesis test for the data, we can use the following null and alternative
hypotheses:

1 represents the slope of our regression equation that would aim to predict a
months aggravated assault rate as a percentage of the annual rate by its average maximum
daily temperature. The null hypothesis states that there is no existing relationship between
a certain months average maximum daily temperature and its percentage of annual
aggravated assaults, with the alternative hypothesis suggesting a relationship existing
between a months average maximum daily temperature and its percentage of annual
aggravated assaults. When all 84 data points (monthly 2007-2013) are tested together we
receive the following output:

The output also indicates that with 95% confidence, the true slope of the regression
is between 0.0007 and .0012. Because this interval does not include 0, we can be more
SUMMARY OUTPUT
Regression Statistics ANOVA
Multiple R 0.640159 df SS MS F Significance F
R Square 0.409804 Regression 1 0.0028 0.0028 56.9369 5.5094E-11
Adjusted R Square 0.402607 Residual 82 0.0041 0.0000
Standard Error 0.007059 Total 83 0.0069
Observations 84
Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Lower 95% Upper 95%Lower 95.0%Upper 95.0%
Intercept 0.0142 0.0092 1.5470 0.1257 -0.0041 0.0325 -0.0041 0.0325
Average of Max Daily Temp in LA (deg F) 0.0009 0.0001 7.5457 0.0000 0.0007 0.0012 0.0007 0.0012
OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 6

certain that a relationship exists between the monthly assault rate in LA and the months
average temperature. This is reinforced with a P-value from the average max daily
temperatures variable of 0.0000, and we accordingly reject the null hypothesis at =0.001
concluding that there is evidence to suggest a correlation between temperature and
aggravated assaults in Los Angeles.
I believe that this relationship can only be so strong in this study because of the
small window of time observed and the other lurking variables that could be at play. This
makes sense, as one could easily understand that there are other things that cause more
assaults in hotter months that arent the outside temperature. For example, some say that
the crime rate increases in the summer because of the amount of young people that are out
of school. My analysis shows an underlying relationship, but is likely not telling the whole
story with only the two variables observed. A controlled experiment could be more
effective in isolating and measuring the violent tendencies of humans in higher
temperatures. One could compare the responses of subject groups (e.g, percentage of group
members that made aggressive physical contact with others) in rooms with different
temperatures when presented a problem designed to initiate conflict. Another option
would be to analyze the number of fouls committed by pairs of opposing teams playing
contact sports in controlled conditions. This would eliminate my studys unknown variable
of the police-force-likelihood to actually charge someone with assault versus issuing a
warning. Much more research could be done regarding the question of human violence in
different conditions.
Summary
OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 7

My study looked at the monthly percentage of aggravated assault charges out of
each years total in Los Angeles from 2007 to 2013. I paired each months number of
assaults with the average daily max temperature from that month and graphed them
together. The result was a scatter plot showing that aggravated assaults generally occurred
more often during months with higher temperatures in Los Angeles. While I didnt have the
resources to observe a larger window of time, theres a good chance that it would make the
relationship between violence in Los Angeles in different temperatures clearer. More
research is needed to explain and understand the small details of human behavior in their
different environments globally.










OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE AND AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS IN LOS ANGELES 8

References
2013 Weather History for Los Angeles, CA. (2014, January 1). Weather Forecast & Reports.
Retrieved April 30, 2014, from
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KLAX/2013/1/1/CustomHistory.
html?dayend=31&monthend=12&yearend=2013&req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_
statename=NA
National Weather Service (2014, January 1). Los Angeles Almanac: Avg. Monthly Maximum
Temp. 1990-2012. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from
http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we01a.htm
Sheriff's Department, L. A. (2012, August 12). Historical Crime Data in Los Angeles County. .
Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://www.lasdhq.org/sites/CAASS/desc.html