Spatiotemporal Patterns and Driving Factors on Crime Changing During Black Lives Matter Protests

Agen Qiu,Dexuan Sha,Yun Li,Chaowei Yang,Zhiran Zhang,Beidi Dong,Shiyang Ruan,Jiping Liu

doi:10.3390/ijgi9110640

Abstract

The death of George Floyd has brought a new wave of 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests into U.S. cities. Protests happened in a few cities accompanied by reports of violence over the first few days. The protests appear to be related to rising crime. This study uses newly collected crime data in 50 U.S. cities/counties to explore the spatiotemporal crime changes under BLM protests and to estimate the driving factors of burglary induced by the BLM protest. Four spatial and statistic models were used, including the Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN), Hotspot Analysis, Least Absolute Shrinkage, and Selection Operator (LASSO), and Binary Logistic Regression. The results show that (1) crime, especially burglary, has risen sharply in a few cities/counties, yet heterogeneity exists across cities/counties; (2) the volume and spatial distribution of certain crime types changed under BLM protest, the activity of burglary clustered in certain regions during protests period; (3) education, race, demographic, and crime rate in 2019 are related with burglary changes during BLM protests. The findings from this study can provide valuable information for ensuring the capabilities of the police and governmental agencies to deal with the evolving crisis.

Highlights

Investigating spatiotemporal distribution patterns and driving factors of crime are continuing concerns within the geography of crime and criminological research [1,2]
Our analysis was well-positioned to identify the variables of crime and driving factors during Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests among the 50 samples of U.S cities examined to date
This research offers one of the first empirical analyses of the spatiotemporal patterns and influencing factors on crime rates during the 2020 BLM protests, which has been a point of concern among public safety and health officials and the media

Summary

Introduction

Investigating spatiotemporal distribution patterns and driving factors of crime are continuing concerns within the geography of crime and criminological research [1,2]. The routine activities theory argues that (macro-level) social changes introduce adjustments in people’s lifestyles and, subsequently, contribute to the supply of crime opportunities (i.e., the agglomeration in space and time of motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians) [5,6]. These two foundational, place-based criminological theories relate socioeconomic factors (i.e., demographic, ethnicity, economic, social, family disruption, marital status, and urbanization) to criminal events [7,8,9]. These events are usually centered around the gathering places of protests

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion