A paper published in 2020 in the journal Environmental Research studied the effect of temperature on crime. The authors used FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data as their crime outcome and they looked at county-level data without any controls for victim or offender demographics because “The NIBRS database does not include any information about the offender or victim, and reports are aggregated data at the county-level without characteristics, such as age, sex, or race.” Both of these issues - having county-level data and having no demographic information - were among the limitations discussed at the end of the paper. Specifically, they stated, “ The NIBRS restricts the availability of individual data, including information about perpetrators, victims, ages, or exact locations of crimes ... County-level crime counts further prohibits the evaluation of environmental characteristics with small-scale neighborhood heterogeneities, including the potential role of greenspace (Bogar and Beyer, 2016).” But these are imaginary problems.
Do facts matter in crime research?
Do facts matter in crime research?
Do facts matter in crime research?
A paper published in 2020 in the journal Environmental Research studied the effect of temperature on crime. The authors used FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data as their crime outcome and they looked at county-level data without any controls for victim or offender demographics because “The NIBRS database does not include any information about the offender or victim, and reports are aggregated data at the county-level without characteristics, such as age, sex, or race.” Both of these issues - having county-level data and having no demographic information - were among the limitations discussed at the end of the paper. Specifically, they stated, “ The NIBRS restricts the availability of individual data, including information about perpetrators, victims, ages, or exact locations of crimes ... County-level crime counts further prohibits the evaluation of environmental characteristics with small-scale neighborhood heterogeneities, including the potential role of greenspace (Bogar and Beyer, 2016).” But these are imaginary problems.