Climate Change and Crime: Shifts in Seasonal Violence Patterns

Seasonal regularities are a fundamental feature of human behavior, yet climate change may disrupt the environmental rhythms that structure them. While prior research has examined how short-term weather fluctuations affect violence, little is known about whether long-run changes in climate seasonality correspond to shifts in violent behavior. Leveraging recent changes in rainfall patterns across the Caribbean and Central American region, we examine whether changes in rainfall seasonality are associated with changes in violence seasonality in two case studies: Colombia (2003-2024) and Mexico (1997-2024), with Gainesville, Florida (2011-2024), included as a Global North robustness check. Using fixed-effects models of monthly rainfall, temperature, and violence anomalies, we find that wetter-than-usual months tend to coincide with lower-than-usual violence and that long-run shifts in rainfall seasonality correspond to parallel shifts in violence seasonality. These findings suggest that climate-related changes in environmental seasonality may be associated with the temporal reorganization of collective violent behavior.