The Crime of the Month

Crime has its own cycles, a magazine reported some years ago. Police records that were studied for five years from over 2 400 cities and towns show a surprising link between changes in the season and crime patterns.

The pattern of crime has varied very little over a long period of years. Murder reaches its high during July and August, as do rape and other violent attacks. Murder, moreover, is more than seasonal: it is a weekend crime. It is also a nighttime crime: 62 percent of murders are committed between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Unlike the summer high in crimes of bodily harm, burglary has a different cycle. You are most likely to be robbed between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. on a Saturday night in December, January, or February. The most uncriminal month of all is May except for one strange statistic more dog bites are reported in this month than in any other month of the year.

Apparently our intellectual seasonal cycles are completely different from our criminal tendencies. Professor Huntington, of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, made extensive studies to discover the seasons when people read serious books, attend scientific meetings, make the highest scores on examinations, and propose the most changes to patents. In all instances, he found a spring peak and an autumn peak separated by a summer low. On the other hand, Professor Huntington's studies indicated that June is the peak month for suicides and admissions to mental hospitals. June is also a peak month for marriages!

Possibly soaring thermometers and high humidity bring on our strange and terrifying summer actions, but police officials are not sure. "There is, of course, no proof of a connection between humidity and murder." they say, "Why murder's high time should come in the summertime we really don't know."