Crime in the Era of COVID-19 by Parth Patel (III) At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about a spike in urban crime rate began to circulate. Potentially, the fear of illness could slow down urban crime or the redirection of the police’s time to enforcing quarantines and curfews could unleash chaos. In June of 2021, Following the initial surge of Covid-19 cases worldwide, Manuel P. Eisner of The University of Cambridge conducted a global analysis of the effect of COVID-19 stayat-home restrictions on urban crime rates. Eisner analyzed police records in 27 cities– including, San Francisco, Lima, and London– focusing on the trends for 6 types of crime. Eisner saw a thirty-seven percent reduction of reported cases of assault, theft, burglary, robbery, vehicle theft, and homicide in the cities. Conversly, COVID’s impact on homicide and intentional first-degree murder fell by only fourteen percent, which was the smallest decrease out of the types of crime observed. A substantial number of domestic homicides is thought to account for the discrepancy in the crime rates. Accounts of burglary (entering a building with the intent to steal) declined by twenty-eight percent; however, it is worth noting that some of the cities in the sample do not distinguish between commercial and residential burglary. When studying the data from the cities that have differentiated the two subsets of burglary, they found that because of the increased presence in homes, residential burglary rates went down significantly. On the contrary, due to the lack of supervision in commercial buildings, there was a smaller decrease in cases of commercial burglary. Reported cases of theft also fell, as they saw a monumental decline of 47% compared to pre-pandemic levels, which is
most likely attributed to less social interaction, therefore less opportunity to steal. As a whole, urban crime rates decreased across all six categories, in spite of less police supervision. Eisner’s study suggests that preliminary fears of a state of global anarchy due to the Pandmeic are not necessarily warranted. People panicked and worried that if the police fell ill, a reign of lawlessness would increase crime rates. Others believed that fear of falling ill would dissuade large amounts of criminal activity, citing lower crime rates in the winter. With Eisner’s data on decreased crime rates, the question becomes: Why were so many people wrong about this outcome? Why did people expect the worst? Just how can our newfound understanding of crime impact the field of criminal psychology or even the fields beyond that? Works Cited 1. Nivette, A.E., Zahnow, R., Aguilar, R. et al. A global analysis of the impact of COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions on crime. Nat Hum Behav 5, 868–877 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01139-z 2. Abrams, David S. “Crime Rates Dropped in 2020—Just as They Did in 1918.” Wired, 14 Jan. 2021, www.wired.com/story/crime-ratesdropped-in-2020-just-as-they-did-in-1918/.
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Gavel by Connor Chen (VI)
