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Cited by 20Climate Change and Health ImpactsCriminal Justice and Corrections AnalysisCrime Patterns and Interventions

The Causal Effect of Heat on Violence: Social Implications of Unmitigated Heat Among the Incarcerated

Open access
Mukherjee, Anita, Sanders, Nicholas·2021·National Bureau of Economic Research
DOI 10.3386/w28987
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Abstract

Correctional facilities commonly lack climate control, producing a setting absent endogenous responses to hot weather like avoidance, adjustment, and mitigation.We study daily weather variation across the state of Mississippi, and show that high temperatures increase intense violence among the incarcerated.Days with unsafe heat index levels shift both the intensive and extensive margins of violence, raising daily violent interactions by 20%, and the probability of any violence by 18%.Our setting cleanly identifies the effect of heat on violence, and highlights previously unobserved social costs of current facility infrastructure.Rising global temperatures could substantially increase violence absent adjustment.

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  • Similar trade-offs in cost, accountability, and service quality characterize the outsourcing of other criminal justice services, such as prison management.

    “Similar trade-offs in cost, accountability, and service quality characterize the outsourcing of other criminal justice services, such as prison management(Mukherjee, 2021;Mukherjee and Sanders, 2021;Yegen, 2021).”

    From What is the Best Response? Examining the Impact of Police and Their Alternatives (2025) · cites this paper as Mukherjee and Sanders, 2021

    The Introduction discusses the costs of prison temperature control, and the Data section describes Mississippi correctional facilities. Neither addresses outsourcing prison management or trade-offs in cost, accountability, and service quality. Searches for private and contracted prison management found no passage addressing that claim. (LLM, conf=0.74)

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2 of the 33 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Larrick, Richard P., Thomas A. Timmerman, Andrew M. Carton, and Jason Abrevaya. 2011. "Temper, temperature, and temptation: Heat-related retaliation in baseball." Psychological Science, 22(4): 423-428.
  2. Park, R. Jisung, Joshua Goodman, Michael Hurwitz, and Jonathan Smith. 2020. "Heat and learning." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 12(2): 306-39.
  3. Rothfusz, Lans P. 1990. The heat index equation (or, more than you ever wanted to know about heat index). Vol. 9023, Fort Worth, Texas: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, Office of Meteorology.
  4. Schlenker, Wolfram, and Michael J. Roberts. 2009. "Nonlinear temperature effects in- dicate severe damages to US crop yields under climate change." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37): 15594-15598.
  5. Cook, R. (2015, Aug 23) Georgia prisons: Gangs, rising violence, thou- sands of cellphones. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution https://bit.ly/3cIbJQ7 E-3

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Authors
Mukherjee, A., & Sanders, N.
Affiliations
National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
ORCID
Venue
National Bureau of Economic Research
Publisher
National Bureau of Economic Research
Published
2021-07
DOI
10.3386/w28987
OpenAlex
W3182775647
Cited by
19
References
33
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1
Type
report
Language
en
Open access
Locations
National Bureau of Economic Research (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime Patterns and Interventions
Keywords
heat, violence, prisons, heat index, climate control, weather effects, climate change, prison infrastructure

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