Abstract
This work investigates whether and how COVID-19 containment policies had an immediate impact on crime trends in Los Angeles. The analysis is conducted using Bayesian structural time-series and focuses on nine crime categories and on the overall crime count, daily monitored from January 1st 2017 to March 28th 2020. We concentrate on two post-intervention time windows—from March 4th to March 16th and from March 4th to March 28th 2020—to dynamically assess the short-term effects of mild and strict policies. In Los Angeles, overall crime has significantly decreased, as well as robbery, shoplifting, theft, and battery. No significant effect has been detected for vehicle theft, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, intimate partner assault, and homicide. Results suggest that, in the first weeks after the interventions are put in place, social distancing impacts more directly on instrumental and less serious crimes. Policy implications are also discussed.
Highlights
In the first months of 2020, California was one of the first States to be affected by the spread of a new virus belonging to the coronavirus family, named Sars-CoV-2
On March 19th, the California Department of Public Health further reinforced the containment strategy by ordering all individuals living in the State to stay at home (County of Los Angeles, 2020)
The standard for assessing the causal impact of a certain intervention is represented by Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) (Rubin, 1974)
Summary
In the first months of 2020, California was one of the first States to be affected by the spread of a new virus belonging to the coronavirus family, named Sars-CoV-2. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Department of Public Health declared a health emergency. The Los Angeles population had been invited to adopt simple social distancing strategies that limit their exposure to others—e.g., remaining home when sick—and to prepare for the possibility of more significant social distancing requirements. The institutional intervention started to become stronger on March 16th, with the prohibition of all events comprising fifty or more attendees. On March 19th, the California Department of Public Health further reinforced the containment strategy by ordering all individuals living in the State to stay at home (County of Los Angeles, 2020)
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