Violent crime, weather shocks, and climate adaptation: Evidence from Swiss municipalities

Using daily police records for 2,145 Swiss municipalities matched to high-resolution weather data over 2009-2022, we estimate the effect of weather shocks on three categories of violent crime: general, domestic, and sexual violence. Identification comes from daily within-municipality variation in maximum temperature and precipitation, which we exploit in a fixed-effects Poisson regression. On hot days (≥30°C) relative to mild days (10-15°C), offenses rise by approximately 15% for general violence, 18% for domestic violence, and 60% for sexual violence, with the sexual-violence response markedly nonlinear above 15°C. Precipitation reduces general violence but has no consistent effect on the other two categories. As municipalities differ in their exposure to hot days, and projected warming will raise it, our estimates inform the place-based and seasonal targeting of prevention and enforcement resources within climate-adaptation policy in Switzerland.