Assaults soared in American cities during Donald Trump's election rallies, reveals new research.
Cities experienced 2.3 more assaults than average on days when hosting presidential campaign rallies for Trump during the lead-up to the 2016 US Presidential Election, according to the first study of its kind.
But rallies involving Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton s were not linked to any increase in assaults, according tothe findings published online by the journal Epidemiology.
Lead author Doctor Christopher Morrison, a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, said: "News media sources reported there were violent incidents at some campaign rallies, but it was difficult to gauge whether there really was a systematic problem, and if so, how many additional assaults were associated with each rally.
"To prevent similar violence in the future, it is important to understand the underlying causes of this behaviour, perhaps including the role that political rhetoric might play in normalising or promoting violence."
Focusing on cities of greater than 200,000 people, the team performed a systematic Google search and found publicly available data for 31 rallies in 22 cities for Trump and 38 rallies in 21 cities for Clinton.
Using assault figures from police departments in those cities, including aggravated assaults, simple assaults, and/or battery, the researchers counted assaults on the day of each rally.
For comparison, they also counted assaults on corresponding days of the week for four weeks before and four weeks after each rally.
Rallies in the study were defined as open invitation events that occurred after Trump and Clinton declared their candidacies in spring 2015 and before the US Presidential Election on November 8, 2016, featured a speech by Trump or Clinton, and were not on the same day as a party primary election in the same state as the rally.
The researchers suggest two possible explanations for their findings.
Firstly, all additional assaults could have occurred in and around the venues of candidate Trump's rallies where people invested in the process gathered. This explanation is consistent with news media reports that violence occurred at these specific locations.
Secondly, additional assaults that took place might have occurred elsewhere in the rally cities.
The researchers said that studies informed by theories of "social contagion" find evidence that emotional states can be transmitted through news reports and social media, which could have led to more assaults occurring away from the rally sites.
The researchers noted that Trump rallies were widely broadcast and discussed through news reports and social media, such as a rally in Iowa during which Trump said that he would "knock the crap out of" would-be hecklers at the event.
Study senior author Dr Douglas Wiebe, an associate professor in Epidemiology at Penn, added: "This research provides evidence that this increase in assaults is associated with candidate Trump's rallies leading up to the election.
"Violent language may have affected the mood and behaviour of rally attendees, as well as those exposed to the rally through news reports and social media."
The researchers said weather can also influence crime rates, so they consulted National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration figures for the weather station nearest to each study city to control for temperature and precipitation.
ENDS
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel