Crime Takes a Holiday When Weather Turns Wet

Crime and water apparently don’t mix.

If you’ve ever wanted to stay home from work and curl up in bed during a rainstorm, Los Angeles police say you’re not alone--crooks also tend to stay away from work in rainy weather.

“Generally when it rains we see a tremendous reduction in overall crime,” Sgt. Paul McMillin of the LAPD’s Van Nuys station.

Police throughout the Valley reported little criminal activity this week--a beneficial side effect of the season’s driving rains. For instance, only three slayings were reported this week in the Valley, a paltry sum by L.A. standards.

Official statistics were not immediately available; crime reports had been compiled only through January. But a quick comparison of L.A. crimes during January 1997 and last month did show a dramatic drop in both violence and property crimes--from 23,358 incidents to 14,181 incidents, respectively.

Whether the drop was part of an ongoing national trend or somehow related to El Nino, no one could really say Friday. But the consensus from booking rooms in Reseda and North Hollywood, Northridge, Van Nuys and Pacoima seemed to be this:

“The bad guys don’t want to get wet,” as McMillin put it.

At least one psychologist noted Friday that lack of sunlight can serve as a depressant and make people less aggressive. And no one really enjoys driving in the rain, one sociologist observed.

Homicide detectives, ever practical, said the rain gave them a chance to catch up on investigations and catch up with crooks.

“When the weather is bad it makes it a lot easier to find them, because they’ll be at home,” Robbery-Homicide Det. Gregory Grant said. “When the weather is pleasant they’ll be all hanging out all over the place.”

But not everyone is singing in the rain.

As rain tends to keep people indoors, it also keeps families together--and may contribute to domestic violence.

“People may be less able to get away from grating encounters with their spouse or children and this might lead to more domestic abuse,” said psychologist Adrian Raine, citing similar results in studies of domestic violence during national holidays.