Proven once and for all: Is crime worse during a full moon?

An acting chief superintendent has told how he was “nearly got chopped into little tiny pieces by a bloke carrying a tomahawk and a hammer” on a job, and he swears blind a full moon had a major part to play in it. But is he right?

If you ask police officers, paramedics, fire fighters, or healthcare workers what a full moon means, they’ll almost certainly all say the same thing – the big, mesmerising beauty that is the full moon makes people do crazy things.

One senior officer from the Queensland Police Service (QPS), who, like thousands of his colleagues believed in the full moon’s mythical, magical and mad ability to make people act out, was determined to investigate if the age old passage, passed down in the QPS for generations, had any truth to it.

After spending the better part of a decade analysing 908,000 policing jobs in South Brisbane, Acting Chief Superintendent Geoff Sheldon revealed he has his answers, which he would later describe was like finding out the truth about Santa Claus.

Queensland Police Acting Chief Superintendent Geoff Sheldon dedicated nearly a decade to uncovering the truth about crime rates and the full moon. Picture: Brendan Radke

“When I joined the police, the old blokes used to say ‘full moons and brass bands bring out the crazies’. Well I don’t know about the brass bands, but experience has shown the full moon aspect is true. It’s just something every copper knows,” he said.

Acting Chief Supt Sheldon would start his University Thesis with the above quote; his wife later getting it printed on a coffee cup as a Christmas gift for the now Doctorate holding police officer, who chose to study the impacts to policing on the full moon.

“It’s something that’s passed down from generation to generation within the QPS,” he told The Courier-Mail.

“I spent 30-something bloody years believing it myself - I nearly got chopped into little tiny pieces by a bloke carrying a tomahawk and a hammer on the night of a full moon.”

But, as a surprise for many, Acting Chief Supt Sheldon’s studies would in fact reveal that the moon does not impact on crime rates.

“I was like a kid finding out there’s no bloody Santa Claus,” he said.

“I had taken years to do this and was looking forward to showing up all those academics … It’s always something every police officer knows, but then I went looking, none of the academics agreed.

“So then I thought, well what would the academics know? I’m a policeman, I’m going to look at this from our perspective, that’ll show ‘em.”

Does the moon impact rates of crime? Picture: Hussein Faleh/ AFP.

After painstakingly entering over 28 million pieces of data to get to the bottom of the age old passage, Acting Chief Supt Sheldon says his colleagues still don’t take his word for it.

“(They say) ‘oh look, I know you’ve done all that study, but …”, he joked.

“No one believes me, and I must admit, I can’t blame them. I was a staunch believer myself when I decided to drill right down into it. But, really, there’s nothing in it.”

The experienced officer, who joined the QPS over 39 years ago, took on the mammoth task of returning to study while continuing to work as a police officer to potentially help improve the service the organisation provides.

Acting Chief Supt Sheldon tested eight specific types of police responses – calls regarding: mentally ill people; domestic violence; disturbance; rape; homicide; suicide; wilful exposure; and, fatal traffic accidents.

He said if his study revealed what emergency services were sure to be true, police could make allowances to better prepare for nights there was a full moon.

Queensland Police Acting Chief Supt Geoff Sheldon said learning the truth about the moon was like learning the truth about Santa Claus. Picture: Scott Powick.

“My study did show we’re a lot busier on the weekends - we all already knew that. But, if we are busier on a full moon … do we need to address that to cover the likes of increase in disturbances or domestic violence,” Acting Chief Supt Sheldon said.

“Do we need to change our rostering practices, or is there a hardship allowance that should be paid for working the bloody full moon …

“So more than just detective curiosity, there was some legitimate thought of- can we deliver a better service if we plan better, because we know this? But it just didn’t come to fruition.”

Instead, the study revealed on average, there were 310 calls for service on a day with non-full-moon day, compared to 311 on a day with a full moon.

On weekends, calls for service increased greatly, but again, the difference between non-full-moon days (370 calls for service) and full moon days (373 calls for service), was minimal.

Acting Chief Supt Sheldon will further explain his findings on Tuesday night at a twilight seminar Does the full moon need to be factored in when policing the Sunshine State?, hosted by Bond University.

You can register on the University’s website to attend or watch the April 13 event via Zoom.