Seasonal Cycles in Crime, and Their Variability
First published: 2012
Brief summary
Analysis of crime records from multiple countries finds a consistent annual (seasonal) cycle in most crime types, with winter troughs and summer peaks, though the pattern is weaker and noisier for low-frequency crimes like homicide.
Article
Seasonal Cycles in Crime, and Their Variability is a peer-reviewed journal article published by Journal of Quantitative Criminology (Springer) in 2012. It analyses crime records from multiple countries and finds a consistent annual (seasonal) cycle in most crime types, with winter troughs and summer peaks, though the pattern is weaker and noisier for low-frequency crimes like homicide.
The analysis focuses on 1 year (annual/seasonal cycle). The data source is crime time series from multiple US cities, England and Wales, and Israel. This gives the cycle claim a specific numerical and evidential setting rather than presenting periodicity only as a visual impression.
The article reports the following result: The analysis produced consistent evidence of seasonality in the offences examined, with all crimes displaying winter troughs and most displaying summer peaks, though the pattern is weaker for low-frequency crimes like homicide. The interpretation is strongest when it survives detrending, autocorrelation controls, structural-break tests and comparison with stochastic or random-walk alternatives.
For cycles researchers, the article brings together crime seasonality, annual crime cycle, homicide patterns, temporal criminology. It is relevant to social-cycle research because apparent waves in historical or behavioural data must be separated from seasonality, autocorrelation, structural change and random walks.
Because it is a peer-reviewed journal article, the article is a strong starting point for discussion in the Sociology forum, although its conclusions should still be compared with later replications and updated datasets.
Source details and credits
- Source / publisher: Journal of Quantitative Criminology (Springer)
- Source type: Peer-reviewed journal article
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Journal of Quantitative Criminology (Springer)
- URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-011-9145-7