Hot Temperatures, Aggression, and Death at the Hands of the Police: Evidence from the U.S.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-18-2019
Abstract
We study the effect of temperature on police-involved civilian deaths inthe U.S. from 2000 to 2016. We show that violent crimes and assaulted orkilled officers increase with warmer days (≥17oC), indicating an increasedrisk of personal harm on such days. Despite higher threat level, temper-atures have a precise null impact on the number of deaths via firearms,suggesting officers exercise judgment over their use of firearms indepen-dently of threat level. However, deaths from Tasers significantly increaseduring ‘extremely warm’ days (≥32oC), indicating a need to reevaluateTaser-use policies to prevent unintended deaths.
Recommended Citation
Annan-Phan, Sebastien and Ba, Bocar A., "Hot Temperatures, Aggression, and Death at the Hands of the Police: Evidence from the U.S." (2019). Reports. 9.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/qc_reports/9