Monday, March 10, 2014

HOW DAY LIGHT SAVINGS TIME ACTUALLY REDUCES VIOLENT CRIME

That hour you lost in sleep last night might just be worth it, because a study establishes that the extra hour of daylight results in a reduction in violent crime. In fact the crime reduction during that hour of light rather than darkness is significant especially for major violent crimes such as robbery, murder and rape.



Haold Lloyd dangles from a clock high above a street stopping time itself even as daylight savings time fights crime by making criminals less likely to act.
Harold Lloyd Fights Daylight Savings Time
For example, during that well lit extra hour of sunshine there's a reduction in robbery by 51%, murder by 48% and sexual battery by 56%. Could it be that just like us, criminals miss the extra hour of sleep and so slough off their important work habits during during that lonely hour? No, say our hard-hearted scientist, it's simply that criminals are more likely to do their work at night while cloaked in darkness.

According to the study Under the Cover of Darkness: Using Daylight Savings Time to measure how ambient light influences criminal behavior, which ferreted out other variables, it is the light itself that reduces the crime rate. Light increases the likelihood of being caught thereby increasing the expected cost of the crime. The study further shows that Daylight Savings saves over half a billion dollars a year in social costs due to reduced crime. And it suggests that it would be a wise investment to improve night time lighting with more street lights.

Since Florida is known as the Sunshine State one would think crime would not even exist here in Tampa Bay. Nor would one readily believe that beach blanket crime could occur on our sunny beaches during tourist season, yet it does and in broad daylight too. Perhaps the problem is that the street lights are turned off during the day.

Anyway, soon we'll recover our lost sleep. Till then my recommendation for our somnolent Congress is to take that hour away on Monday rather than ruining the weekends by stealing the hour on Sunday. Perhaps the findings of another crime study finding that more iphone muggings occur on Mondays than any other day of the week will help our cause. By reducing the number of hours on Monday crime would be reduced as well.

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