A global analysis of the impact of COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions on crime

Amy Nivette ,Roberta Astolfi ,Barak Ariel ,Maria Fernanda Tourinho Peres ,Joran Veldkamp ,Gorazd Meško ,Nico Trajtenberg ,Robert Svensson ,Lorraine Mazerolle ,Kwang-Ho Jang ,Andri Ahven ,Rosa Loureiro Revilla ,Shai Amram ,Simon Rose ,Rubén Poblete‐Cazenave ,Dirk Baier ,Carlos Vilalta ,Tapio Lappi‐Seppälä ,Gregory Dennis Breetzke ,Ryan Davenport ,I Alberto Concha-Eastman ,Marcelo Bergman ,Juha Kääriäinen ,Carlos Díaz ,Tanja Van Der Lippe ,Noemí Pereda ,María José Arosemena Burbano ,Manne Gerell ,Renee Zahnow ,Hyung-Min Bark ,Diego Fleitas ,Sophie Curtis‐Ham ,Joris Beijers ,Raúl Arístides Pérez Aguilar ,Woon-Sik Lim ,Manuel Eisner

doi:10.1038/s41562-021-01139-z

Abstract

The stay-at-home restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 led to unparalleled sudden change in daily life, but it is unclear how they affected urban crime globally. We collected data on daily counts of crime in 27 cities across 23 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We conducted interrupted time series analyses to assess the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on different types of crime in each city. Our findings show that the stay-at-home policies were associated with a considerable drop in urban crime, but with substantial variation across cities and types of crime. Meta-regression results showed that more stringent restrictions over movement in public space were predictive of larger declines in crime.

Highlights

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency of global concern
We examine the extent to which stay-at-home restrictions in 27 cities in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia were associated with a change in levels of six types of police-recorded crime
An interrupted time series (ITS) design can be used to assess the impact of the treatment while accounting for pre-COVID-19 crime trends[18]

Summary

Introduction

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency of global concern. The cities represent a large variation of measures relating to stay-at-home restrictions They range from mostly voluntary recommendations to avoid public space (for example, Malmö and Stockholm in Sweden) to a complete halt of all but the most essential activities, based on emergency legislation and enforced by substantial penalties for breaching the rules (for example, Lima in Peru). Opportunity theory and routine activity theory, in contrast, suggest that stay-at-home policies interrupted the daily movements in time and space of suitable targets, capable guardians and motivated offenders on which most crime, especially crime in public space, feeds[8] They predict that crime levels fall as the mobility of entire urban populations is restricted[9]. Police services have been required to adjust priorities and redistribute resources to carry out quarantine checks, enforce social distancing and enact border control[17]

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Results

Conclusion