If you have hayfever , you ’ll sleep together that when the pollen count is high you get back up , your eyes are itchy , and you feel lethargic and hapless . In fact , you do n’t finger like doing anything at all . This , it turns out , also applies to pollen - suffer crook .
A work print in theJournal of Health Economicshas discover that when the pollen count is unusually high-pitched in large cities , trigger-happy criminal offence goes down by a significant amount .
" Leveraging casual variation in local pollen counting in 16 US cities , we gift refreshing grounds that violent crime fall by roughly 4 percent on days in which the local pollen count is unusually high , " the authorswrite in the survey .
" While this might go like a little behavioural response , it is on par with the change in crime that would be expected to accrue from a 10 percent increase in the sizing of a city ’s constabulary force . "
The team looked at crime level in cities admit Chicago , Georgia , and New York . They found that whilst there was a noticeable decline in violent crimes when pollen was eminent , this effect was n’t see on property crime , which generally involve more pre - provision . Pre - be after crimes , it appear , are not canceled by criminals after they find out the pollen count .
The team suggests that the reason the decline in red crime is find is not some unusual effect of pollen on the brain chemistry of allergy martyr , nor was it that the great unwashed had less chance to commit crimes because they were remaining indoors forth from the pollen . There was a reduction in domesticated violence too .
" alternatively , the primary manner in which these allergies affect people may be through the materialization of the strong-arm symptoms of illness which we argue changes the costs and benefits of offending as well as of victim precaution , " they write .
" founder that the effects we observe are driven by a declination in residential , mostly family fierceness , despite the fact that , if anything , there is more residential interaction on mellow pollen day , this not merely a fib about a variety in chance or routine activities . "
" fierceness responds to other situational cistron which shift the costs and benefits of offending and precaution : malaise motor by pollen allergies . "
In myopic , the great unwashed may be too drowsy from hayfever to charge crimes . The authors say that this present how sensitive offense is to wellness shocks , and it ’s not just that the criminal offense are being delayed either . The study found that on high pollen days wild crime was reduced whilst individuals who may have committed violence were incapacitated due to allergic reaction , but there was no comparable increase in offence in the surveil days as they go back .
" Our upshot do not show grounds of temporal displacement or state dependence , and hence the data are most consistent with the proportion that high-pitched pollen days prevent crime rather than check it . "
So , I guess , if you want to prevent offence invest in pollen canons rather than law ?
