Crime level is often thought to be influenced by a wide range of factors that include, but are not limited to general education levels, cultural settings, and existing legislations or laws. Air pollution is probably at the back of our minds when imagining what could possibly influence crime. However, just because it is not widely discussed does not mean it is trivial as compared to other stimulants of crime.
Aside from adversely affecting mental health to manifest in “unethical behaviour” such as committing crimes, it appears that air pollution can stimulate aggressive behaviour that drives violent crime (Kuo and Putra, 2021).
In their study of the relationship between air pollution and crime in New South Wales, Kuo and Putra (2021) discovered a “positive significant association” between pollution levels and domestic violence in which higher air quality index (AQI) levels correlated to higher rates of domestic violence. These findings are corroborated by Burkhardt et al. (2019), who noted that a 10% increase in exposure to PM2.5 translates to a 0.14% increase in violent crimes of similar nature as domestic violence. Furthermore, a 10% increase in ozone exposure was found to cause a 0.3% and 0.35% increase in violent crimes and assault respectively.
Figure 1. Spatial-temporal difference of AQI coefficients of domestic violence in New South Wales in 2016 (Kuo and Putra, 2021)
Figure 2. PM2.5 dose response function for violent crimes relative to 0 μg3 (Burkhardt el al., 2019)
Figure 3. Ozone dose response function for violent crimes relative to 0 ppm (Burkhardt el al., 2019)
Du’s (2023) comprehensive study of air pollution and violence provides further insight into other potential pathways through which air pollution stimulates crime. His unique methodology encompassed the analysis of social media data (“tweets” on social media platform Twitter), through which he discovered a rise in the number of offensive and racist tweets following oil refineries’ “abnormal shutdown days” that are associated with higher pollution levels. Although no explicit links were drawn to crime rates, it is highly plausible that these hateful “tweets” serve to incite hostility and hate crimes towards black people (Laub, 2019). He also explained that worsening air pollution levels bear significant impacts on medical expenditures, where consumer spending on sinus remedies and breathing aids rose in response to the abnormal outage of oil refineries. However, no clear link was drawn to crime, although it is again possible to infer that the associated financial burden might be too overbearing for low SES (socioeconomic status) communities and individuals, thereby increasing both hate crimes and robberies (van Beek et al., 2020).
Is air pollution necessarily evil, or a necessary evil? Another study by Putra et al. (2019) might just suggest that the latter could be the case. Their spatial analysis of the relationship between AQI and crime revealed that air pollution is negatively related with certain types of crimes. The expected health consequences of air pollution dissuades both potential offenders and victims from travelling outdoors, which in turn reduces rates of robbery and property crimes. As seen in Figure 4, regions with poorer air quality generally coincide with the hotspot of robbery shown in Figure 5. Figure 6 then illustrates the effects of air pollution in reducing robbery rates within the robbery hotspot.
Figure 4. New South Wales air pollution map in 2016 (Putra et al., 2019)
Figure 5. Hotspot of robbery in New South Wales (Putra et al., 2019)
Figure 6. Spatial distribution of robbery as the effect of air pollution (Putra et al., 2019)
Given such findings by Putra et al. (2019), should air pollution be leveraged upon as a “necessary evil” to rid our societies of crime? Is crime a bigger social threat than air pollution? In the scenario that we decide to pollute the air further, how sure can we be that the net effect on crime reduction will be worth such a ludicrous plan of action? I personally believe that separate measures should be taken to deal with the two different issues, rather than making it a zero-sum game. What do you think?
Until the next entry, breathe safe and be safe!
References
Burkhardt, J., Bayham, J., Wilson, A., Carter, E., Berman, J. D., O’Dell, K., Ford, B., Fischer, E. V., & Pierce, J. R. (2019). The effect of pollution on crime: Evidence from data on Particulate Matter and ozone. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 98, 102267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2019.102267
Du, X. (2023). Symptom or culprit? Social Media, air pollution, and violence. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4380957
Kuo, P.-F., & Putra, I. G. (2021). Analyzing the relationship between air pollution and various types of crime. PLOS ONE, 16(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255653
Laub, Z. (2019). Hate speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons
Putra, G. B., Kuo, P.-F., & Chen, H.-H. (2019, October). SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE AIR POLLUTION EFFECT ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND ROBBERY IN NEW SOUTH WALES. Daejeon; Asian Conference on Remote Sensing. https://a-a-r-s.org/proceeding/ACRS2019/MoF1-4.pdf
van Beek, G., de Vogel, V., & van de Mheen, D. (2020). The relationship between debt and crime: A systematic and scoping review. European Journal of Probation, 13(1), 41–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/2066220320964896