Police and judges make more arrests and increase sentences in hotter weather - study

Israeli policemen and judges have been put under severe pressure and have been the focus of heated debate since the Netanyahu government’s abortive judicial reform plan in the beginning of 2023 and as a result of seven months of demonstrations for freeing Israeli captives still being held in Gaza.

But it seems that high temperatures – even sitting in air-conditioned rooms – affect the decision-making of police officers and judges. 

Previous research has already shown that heat can increase criminal activity, with the leading theory proposing that heat reduces emotional control and increases aggression. 

Environmental and development economists Patrick Behrer and Valentine Bolottnyy of Stanford University in California studied the effects of heat on the behavior of those who respond to criminal activity. The authors analyzed records of 10 million arrests across the state of Texas from 2010 through 2017, along with the legal outcomes that followed each arrest. These data were merged with daily temperature data. 

They have just published their findings in the journal PNAS Nexus under the title “Sweltering Texas heat clouds judgment of police and judges, study finds.”

In the scorching summer heat of Texas, when the mercury climbs to triple digits and the air shimmers like a mirage over the endless highways, strange things happen to those tasked with upholding law and order.

The weather itself confuses police and judges 

The very weather itself, it seems, confuses the minds of police officers making arrests and judges rendering verdicts and sentences, wrote the two researchers, who analyzed a staggering 10 million arrest records in the Lone Star State from 2010 to 2017.

The data present an unusual story. On the most sweltering days, police made fewer arrests per reported crime compared to milder days. Yet a higher proportion of these hot-weather arrests were later tossed out in court – a sign, suggest the researchers, that many of them may have been unjustified or legally shaky to begin with. It’s as if the heat itself were acting on the decision-making faculties of the policemen, nudging them. 

If you step inside a Texas courthouse on a blistering day, the story takes another strange twist. The same judges who were more apt to dismiss flimsy arrests made in the heat were also more likely to throw the book at defendants whom they did convict. Prison sentences stretched longer and fines climbed higher, on average, when the gavel came down on hotter-than-usual days. 

Heat, it appears, not only warps the judgment of police on the street – it also pushes judges toward harsher punishments in the courtroom.

The implications of the study are both fascinating and unsettling, suggesting that the very weather can become an invisible thumb on the scales of justice. In a world of climate change, where searing heat waves are predicted to become ever more frequent, this effect could grow in places like Texas. 

Police made fewer arrests per reported crime on the hottest days in the sample, and these arrests were more likely to be dismissed in court, suggesting that more of the hot-day arrests were difficult to justify legally. 

Judges dismissed fewer cases, issued longer prison sentences, and levied higher fines when ruling on hotter-than-average days. Interestingly, heat did not exert a meaningful influence on the decisions of state prosecutors. According to the authors, unless increased staffing and teamwork are used, climate change is likely to worsen police and judicial decision-making in places like Texas through an increased frequency of hot days. 

The researchers suggest potential remedies – stronger air conditioning, increased staffing, and a culture of teamwork as a hedge against individual errors in judgment – but the challenge is clear. In the unrelenting heat of Texas, those sworn to protect and serve, to uphold the law with fairness and reason, must now beware that the sun itself can be their adversary.