Ironman: do people who run for fun alter community-level crime occurrence?

ABSTRACT

The Ironman Triathlon is a globally recognized event; however, there is a lack of research concerning its influence on crime in host cities. This study examines the extent to which the Ironman Triathlon, as a multi-day and mobile event, influences crime across and within the host city. Using city-wide and census tract-level crime data surrounding the May and September 2019 Ironman Competitions held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) analyses explore the potential temporary effects of the event. Results indicate city wide changes in crime, as well as tract-specific effects, but most achieved only marginal statistical significance, and all were limited to the May event.

KEYWORDS:

• Crime analysis
• community crime
• events and crime
• ironman

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Part I crimes include: criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Part II crimes include simple assaults, forgery, counterfeiting, fraud, embezzlement, stolen property, vandalism, weapons, prostitution, sex offenses, drug abuse violations, gambling, offenses against the family and children, driving under the influence, liquor laws, drunkenness, disorderly conduct, vagrancy, all other offenses (FBI, 2004).

2 Incidents were matched to their respective census tracts according to the 2019 Census Tract boundaries and then American Community Survey 5-year estimates for 2019 were joined based on the Tract FIPS.