Cold temperatures affect criminal activity, report says from KentWired.com on Vimeo.

It isn’t cold enough to cancel classes here at Kent State, but it may be too cold for criminals.

In the deep freeze Kent State is experiencing this week, this may be the safest time for students concerning violent crimes. Kent Police Lieutenant Jim Prusha said many factors keep criminals at bay during winter months.

“I think when it’s nicer, more people are out,” Prusha said. “And I think a lot of the violent crimes, the assaults… I don’t think that’s some criminally-minded person saying ‘I’m going to go out tonight and find someone to assault.’ I think more likely than that, it’s somebody who had too much to drink and you just don’t see that in the winter because when bars close, people go away. They don’t hang around and mingle.”

Although researchers debate the relationship between temperature and crime, many experts agree that the hotter the temperature, the hotter the temper.

A University of Missouri-Columbia study found that crime increases during the summer months because of comfortable temperatures for criminals and the general public to be outside. 

However, Kent State Police Community Resource Officer Michquel Penn said  the department’s main safety concern during the winter months is icy roads.

“In the winter months, we do see more traffic accidents, car crashes, weather related,” Penn said. “So crime in general, our crime statistics aren’t very high to begin with. But the type of incidents that we deal with change. Like I said, we’re going to be dealing with a lot more car crashes.” 

Contact Julie Selby at [email protected].