There's an upside to all of this snow and cold: Police on patrol will tell you street crime goes down, as the winter weather changes the face of law enforcement work.

Burglary crime - burglar opening a door
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Ocean County Prosecutor's Office spokesman and former State Police Maj. Al Della Fave says the lows on the thermometer keep break-ins and loitering low as well.

"Beyond crime prevention programs, our next best ally actually is the weather," he said, specifying that any event like a heavy downpour or extreme cold snap does tend to put a damper on criminal activity.

According to Della Fave, individuals who are thinking of breaking and entering must take time outside to "case" a location, and when temperatures are below zero with wind chills even lower, those people will not often venture outdoors.

Cold weather also helps tremendously in controlling street gangs, by cutting down on loitering.

"Those individuals will not want to be out on a street corner more than two minutes when you have these types of temperatures," Della Fave said.

On the flip side, when some people are cooped up together for too long, cabin fever sets in; they get on each other's nerves and domestic complaints made to police tend to rise. Della Fave said patrolmen more frequently find themselves having to show up to referee battles between individuals, "not a fun thing, but it's a big part of policing and does increase during these times of extreme cold."

Also, he said unfortunately, homicide is weatherproof.

"It doesn't matter about the weather or any other type of element," Della Fave said, calling homicide "a whole different breed, emotional-type crimes. They usually aren't planned out. They just happen when someone is emotionally charged."

But recently, New York City went 12 days without a murder, a new record there. Much of that was pinned on the wave of extreme cold that gripped the Big Apple along with the rest of the East Coast. Despite the murder break in New York, however, the city did see an increase in non-lethal gun violence.

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