TREND STORY - DECEMBER 2019

There is a recipe for murder. Dr. Arthur Lurigio has dedicated his life to studying its ingredients.

“I like to call it homicide soup,” said Lurigio, who has an extensive background in the fields of psychology and criminal justice.

Lurigio has a cozy office on the second floor of Sullivan Center on the south end of Loyola University Chicago’s campus. Lake Michigan is visible through one dirty window. Around his desk, there’s a glass trophy from the American Psychological Association, a colorized photograph of his father and a poster of The Beatles to remind him of his favorite album “Revolver.”

The senior associate dean and professor within the College of Arts and Sciences explained some of the factors that, when combined, may lead someone to commit a violent crime.

“The availability of handguns in poor neighborhoods, feeling disrespected, trauma, mental illness, drug or alcohol use, and being part of a violent subculture are all important things to consider to understand why someone commits homicide,” Lurigio said.

Yet there’s another ingredient to the homicide soup that’s often overlooked. It’s invisible and often unpredictable, sometimes pleasant and sometimes suffocating. And recently, it has become more extreme because of climate change.

It’s the temperature.

According to several studies published in the past few months, and from articles by The New York Times and The Washington Post, there is a consensus that higher temperatures can lead to higher instances of violent crime.

While the correlation between these two variables has been debated for decades, there’s one thing that rings true: more Americans are murdered during warmer days and months compared to colder ones.

Chicago crime statistics help support this conclusion. There’s an average of 13 shooting victims on days when the temperature is over 84 degrees (in summer months like July and August). On days when the temperature is under 50 degrees, the number of shooting victims goes down to approximately six people.

“On average, about twice as many people are shot in northern cities like Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit when it’s hot versus when it’s cold,” wrote Jeff Asher, a former CIA officer and a freelance reporter for The New York Times. “In southern cities like Atlanta and New Orleans, the effect exists but is weaker.”

There are two main theories as to why crime may go up when temperatures spike: hot weather makes people more aggressive and uncomfortable and the fact that people tend to be outside more. “

When temperatures are extremely hot and it’s very humid,” Lurigio said, “the body releases stress hormones that can make you feel irritable, especially when you can’t escape the heat. People are less tolerant and get frustrated more easily.”

Lurigio also described a concept known as routine activity theory.

“More people are outside, so there are more targets to shoot, if I’m being crass about it,” Lurigio said. “More shooters are driving around with open windows, but nobody notices. People are also more likely to be robbed when it’s warm because they forget to lock their doors and go on vacation in the summer more often.”

As climate change gradually begins to produce sweatier, stickier and grouchier days, law enforcement also has to deal with unfavorable conditions that might make day-to-day operations more difficult, as well as needing to manage the spike in crime resulting from high temperatures.

Robert Lombardo is a sociologist and professor emeritus of criminology and criminal justice at Loyola. He worked with the Chicago Police Department for 28 years and was involved in everything from patrolling to narcotics to intelligence.

“The summer months were always violent,” said Lombardo, reflecting on his time with CPD. “We would sometimes work all night until the sun came up. It would get really busy and the department would do its best to keep up with calls.”

However, Lombardo pointed out that the boiling summer months weren’t the only challenging times of the year. Colder months were violent too.

He reminded people not to forget about the opposite perspective: “When people are cooped up in the winter and they’re drinking or smoking, they definitely act out too and cases of domestic violence increase. There’s always a slight crime spike in January, but people forget about that.”

Regardless, if higher temperatures usually lead to more crime, will climate change lead to more violent cities in the future?

“If crime were to stem from climate change, and I hope it doesn’t happen, it would probably have to do with resources and scarcity,” Lurigio said. “With any extreme temperatures, there might be less food available, people get desperate and neighbors will start stealing from each other.”

Does the scene Lurigio describe remind you of any dystopian sci-fi movies, say, “Mad Max?” Ariel Rand, a junior studying accounting and information systems, said that it’s terrifying to think that rampant climate change could potentially make those catastrophic, crime-ridden scenes in the movie a reality.

“As much as we like to say that we are an organized society, anarchy could descend on communities when resources get scarce,” Rand said.

“People are not scared as much by remote and uncertain threats as they are by immediate and real ones,” Lurigio said. “When the environment becomes unpredictable, it makes people anxious, it makes people frightened, it makes people behave in ways they wouldn’t normally.”

At the end of the day, Rand said it’s really hard to get people to care about climate change — and we might not until it’s too late.

“We’re taking steps in the right direction,” Rand said, “but the majority of people and corporations don’t really care. It’s not until the Indian subcontinent is over 150 degrees in the summer, and there are millions of people dying, and wealthy people start to seriously get affected, that people will actually start to care.”