Changes In Crime Rates Research Articles

Addressing Urban Management Challenges for Sustainable Development: Analyzing the Impact of Neighborhood Deprivation on Crime Distribution in Chicago

Urban crime prevention remains a critical challenge intertwined with socioeconomic disparities. This study investigates the spatial nexus between urban deprivation and crime decline in Chicago from 2015 to 2022, addressing the question: How do changes in neighborhood deprivation relate to crime reduction patterns? Using comprehensive crime incident and census tract Area Deprivation Index (ADI) data, this study conducted exploratory spatial analysis, regression modeling, and local bivariate relationship analysis. The findings reveal persistent hotspots of concentrated deprivation on Chicago’s south and west sides, alongside a general citywide crime decline. However, the current research uncovered significant spatial heterogeneity in both deprivation patterns and crime reduction, challenging the achievement of equitable public safety outcomes. Surprisingly, while crime incidents in 2015 and 2022 significantly predicted crime change, ADI scores were not statistically significant predictors in our regression model. Local bivariate analysis exposed diverse relationships between ADI changes and crime rate changes across neighborhoods, with 72.2% of census tracts showing no statistically significant relationship. This underscores the complexity of urban crime dynamics and the importance of local context in understanding these patterns. Our research contributes a nuanced understanding of the intricate relationship between urban deprivation and crime patterns, providing valuable insights for policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and urban planners. These findings highlight the need for integrated, long-term strategies that address both crime prevention and socioeconomic disparities, ultimately fostering safer, more equitable urban environments and informing evidence-based interventions tailored to specific neighborhood contexts.

When Crime Meets Pandemic: Organized Crimes and Triad Societies’ Activities during COVID-19 Pandemic in Hong Kong

Recent studies suggest that the pandemic has impacted criminal activities and organized crime groups. This article provides a qualitative review of changes in crime rates, patterns, and activities of organized crime groups (specifically, Triads) in Hong Kong. Three specific types of organized crimes with high Triad involvement were selected: serious violent crimes, serious drug-related crimes, and smuggling. After analyzing both official and non-official sources, the results showed that despite the government's stringent control measures that significantly suppressed socio-economic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the figures for these selected crimes rose tremendously. Triads' organized criminal activities became more frequent, dangerous, and aggressive, posing a severe threat to Hong Kong's law and order.

A Case Study of the Crime Rate in Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong

A series of studies have explored the relationship between crime rates and socioeconomic factors. Few researchers, however, have made an empirical analysis of the crime rate in China over the past 30 years. In terms of the data spanning 30 years involving five probable factors: Gross Domestic Product, Consumer Price Index, employment rate, divorce rate and educational rate, I find that the change in crime rates is mainly correlated with the change in education level and unemployment rate in Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. But the growth of the gross domestic product, which is a macroeconomic indicator, may not be as important as one might think in the change in crime rate. In particular, I also look at the impact of major events on crime rates -- the return of Hong Kong and the promulgation of the Criminal Law Amendment in 1997 and found that the Criminal Law Amendment had a positive impact on the crime rate in the Chinese mainland. This paper conducts an empirical modelling analysis of panel data from 1990 to 2020 in Chines mainland and Hong Kong from different social systems, measures the impact of different factors on the crime rate, and tries to find the most effective way to reduce the crime rate for China. Through the analysis, it can be found that in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, the most effective way to reduce the crime rate is not to develop the economy but to improve the overall level of education.

Race, Perceived Criminality and Housing Choice Voucher Recipients: Do Black Voucher Recipients’ Moves to the Suburbs Increase Crime Rates?

Public attention has focused on especially Black Housing Choice Voucher Recipients’ (HCVRs) residential mobility and whether and to what extent crime is influenced as a result. This paper adds to the growing empirical literature on this question by focusing on the race of HCVRs and examining whether changes in Black HCVRs presence in suburban areas over time is followed by changes in crime rates among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country. Multiple data sources are used to examine this question including data on voucher holders from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Picture of Subsidized Housing, on crime from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Offenses Known and Cleared by Arrest compiled by the FBI, and on important demographic data from the Census Bureau. First difference regression methods as well as lead and lag dependent (and independent) variable analysis, among other methods, are used to assess whether Black HCVRs influence crime in suburban areas. The results of the analysis indicate no support for the Black HCVRs – suburban crime hypothesis, consistent with previous research. The evidence indicates positive, statistically significant relationships between White HCVRs and suburban crime. However, lead and lag analysis suggests the relationship is not causal. If anything, the evidence points to White HCVRs moving to suburban areas where crime is increasing. Fears of increased crime resulting from increased presence of HCVRs are therefore not well supported by the studies’ results, and should allay any concerns about unintended crime costs of the HCV program.

Local crime and fertility

We present the first estimates of the impact of local area crime on fertility. We first develop a simple theoretical model to examine the relationship between crime and fertility. We explore labor income, as a proxy for labor market conditions, house prices and school quality as potential channels. The model predicts that individuals change their demand for children through the income and substitution effects in response to changes in crime rates. We test the theoretical predictions of the model using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey that matches each household to crime statistics, school quality and house prices at the Local Government Area (LGA) level. We find that a one standard deviation increase in the LGA crime rate causes a 7.8 per cent increase in fertility and that house prices and school quality are channels through which crime influences fertility. We find that the mediating effect of school quality is stronger than that of house prices, and that the interaction between school quality and house prices reinforces the role of house prices as a mediator. Further, the positive effect of crime on fertility rates is stronger for homeowners compared to non-homeowners and weaker for those homeowners with a mortgage, relative to those who own their home outright.

Changes in Crime Rates during the COVID-19 Pandemic

We estimate changes in the rates of five FBI Part 1 crimes during the 2020 spring COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period and the period after the killing of George Floyd through December 2020. We use weekly crime rate data from 28 of the 70 largest cities in the United States from January 2018 to December 2020. Homicide rates were higher throughout 2020, including during early 2020 prior to March lockdowns. Auto thefts increased significantly during the summer and remainder of 2020. In contrast, robbery and larceny significantly declined during all three post-pandemic periods. Point estimates of burglary rates pointed to a decline for all four periods of 2020, but only the pre-pandemic period was statistically significant. We construct a city-level openness index to examine whether the degree of openness just prior to and during the lockdowns was associated with changing crime rates. Larceny and robbery rates both had a positive and significant association with the openness index implying lockdown restrictions reduced offense rates whereas the other three crime types had no detectable association. While opportunity theory is a tempting post hoc explanation of some of these findings, no single crime theory provides a plausible explanation of all the results. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

In a world called catastrophe: the impact of COVID-19 on neighbourhood level crime in Vancouver, Canada.

Objectives To test for statistically significant change in crime rates across neighbourhoods in Vancouver, Canada, resulting from social restrictions within the natural experiment of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsDifferential local Moran’s I is used to identify statistically significant change in crime patterns across Vancouver’s neighbourhoods because of COVID-19. These changes are analysed with variables from social disorganization theory constructs using ANOVA.ResultsAt the neighbourhood level, all crime types have significant change during COVID, but not always at the city level. Different neighbourhoods have different changes in crime despite these changes appearing to be constant at the city level; local effects asre important to consider. Variables representing the constructs of social disorganization theory are able to predict these changes.ConclusionsCOVID-19 has changed the patterns of crime in Vancouver, but most often in theoretically expected ways. Local changes are critical to understand crime during a pandemic.

Crime down in the Paris of the prairies: Spatial effects of COVID-19 and crime during lockdown in Saskatoon, Canada

ObjectivesTo test for statistically significant changes in crime rates across neighbourhoods in Saskatoon, Canada resulting from social restrictions within the natural experiment of the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsA spatial point pattern test is used to identify statistically significant change in crime patterns across Saskatoon's neighbourhoods because of COVID-19. These changes are analyzed with variables from social disorganization theory constructs using multinomial logistic regression. ResultsThe results indicate a city-wide decline in crime during the COVID-19 lockdown. However, at the local level, socially disorganized dissemination areas experience increases in certain crime types. Variables representing the constructs of social disorganization theory are generally able to predict these changes, suggesting the need to examine changes in crime at different geographic levels. ConclusionsCOVID-19 has changed the patterns of crime in Saskatoon, but most often in theoretically expected ways. Local changes are critical to understand crime during a pandemic and are instructive for policing agencies as well as social service providers during such an exceptional event.

Changes in crime surrounding an urban home renovation and rebuild programme

Neighbourhood environments are a known social determinant of health. Vacant and abandoned buildings and lots and poor or hazardous housing conditions, combined with crime and violence, can affect residents’ health and wellbeing. Nationwide Children’s Hospital and its partners launched the Healthy Homes initiative in 2008, which sought to improve nearby residents’ health and wellbeing by rejuvenating vacant and abandoned properties and increasing homeownership in the South Side neighbourhood of Columbus, Ohio. Between 2008 and mid-2019 the initiative funded 273 repairs or renovations in this neighbourhood. We conducted a ZIP-code-level comparative case study of the Healthy Homes housing interventions using synthetic control methodology to evaluate changes in crime rate in the intervention area compared with those in a synthetic control area. While findings were mixed, we found some evidence of reduced thefts in the Healthy Homes area, relative to its synthetic control. This initiative to repair, rebuild and increase ownership of housing has the potential to reduce crime rates for neighbours of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Dynamics of the Causes Of Crime: a Life-Course Application of Situational Action Theory for the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood

PurposeAccording to the Developmental Ecological Action Model (DEA) of the situational action theory (SAT), changes in crime rates over the life-course are explained through personal (moral) maturation and socio-ecological selection. This assumption is empirically tested by comparing results for the conditioning effect of the principle of moral correspondence (as an essential part of SAT’s perception-choice process) on crime rates for the transition from adolescence to adulthood.MethodsComparing two waves of a German longitudinal study (CrimoC, 17 and 26 years old, n = 1738), a series of logistic and multinomial logistic regressions and ensuing estimated transition probabilities capture the cross-sectional but also developmental processes involved. Additionally, the CrimoC study offers a differential analysis of offending scales, separating offenses into youth and adult crimes.ResultsThe principle’s conditioning effect on crime could be replicated at both times. We can observe a general trend of individual transitions, which correspond to predicted personal maturation and socio-ecological selection. The transitions correlate with the expected reduction in crime rates over time. Males and females show comparable results. The separation into different offending scales yielded tentative insights.ConclusionWe found stability in the mechanisms leading to crime as proffered by SAT and DEA across time. Personal (moral) maturation and socio-ecological selection are likely to be the driving forces behind reducing crime in adulthood. Future research needs to explain in detail how life-course events influence these factors. Considering adult crimes in the analysis is a promising endeavor that warrants further investigation.

Crime and mobility during the COVID-19 lockdown: a preliminary empirical exploration

ABSTRACT In this research note, we document the decrease in victimisation rates during the COVID-19 lockdown period in New Zealand. We show that the changes in mobility patterns in the same period are significantly correlated with these changes in crime rates. We discuss how our preliminary empirical results accord with the theories of crime in economics and criminology.

The U-shaped Crime Recovery during COVID-19: Evidence from National Crime Rates in Mexico

The existing empirical evidence suggests a reduction in aggregate crime as a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdown. However, what happens when lockdown measures are relaxed? This paper considers how the COVID-19 pandemic affects crime rates throughout Mexico when the stay-at-home orders end. We use national crime data from Mexico’s National Public Security System, which reports municipality-level homicides, drug crime, extortion, battery, theft, fraud, property crime, and assault. We track monthly changes in crime rates using an event-study design. Our results show that battery, theft, fraud, property crime, and assault follow a U-shaped trend. The U-shaped indicates that when the lockdown ends, conventional crimes rise back to pre-pandemic levels.

The Law and Economics of De-policing

There is mounting evidence for something that some criminologists have dubbed “The Ferguson Effect”—when police face hostile public scrutiny, in the wake of a highly publicized incident of police misconduct, there is impressive evidence of police retreat, sometimes referred to as “de-policing.” Recent data reviewed by Professors Richard Rosenfeld and Paul Cassell in their important papers document sharp spikes in violent crime in major cities following protests against police violence beginning in May 2020. It is a devilishly difficult business to ascertain the causes of changes in crime rates. Even granting the ineradicable uncertainties, this article argues that there is an impressive case that this crime spike reflects a Ferguson Effect. The incentives confronting police offices suggest the likely mechanism for the decline in law enforcement activity documented by Professor Cassell. Because officers internalize few, if any, of the benefits of effective policing, when they perceive a risk that they will be made to internalize its costs, over-deterrence is the likely outcome. There are, moreover, important policy implications of this conclusion. Policing reforms must be alert to the risk that they will over-deter officers, and thereby spur increases in violent crime, which will impose disproportionate costs on disadvantaged communities and people of color.

Crime and coronavirus: social distancing, lockdown, and the mobility elasticity of crime

Governments around the world restricted movement of people, using social distancing and lockdowns, to help stem the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We examine crime effects for one UK police force area in comparison to 5-year averages. There is variation in the onset of change by crime type, some declining from the WHO ‘global pandemic’ announcement of 11 March, others later. By 1 week after the 23 March lockdown, all recorded crime had declined 41%, with variation: shoplifting (− 62%), theft (− 52%), domestic abuse (− 45%), theft from vehicle (− 43%), assault (− 36%), burglary dwelling (− 25%) and burglary non-dwelling (− 25%). We use Google Covid-19 Community Mobility Reports to calculate the mobility elasticity of crime for four crime types, finding shoplifting and other theft inelastic but responsive to reduced retail sector mobility (MEC = 0.84, 0.71 respectively), burglary dwelling elastic to increases in residential area mobility (− 1), with assault inelastic but responsive to reduced workplace mobility (0.56). We theorise that crime rate changes were primarily caused by those in mobility, suggesting a mobility theory of crime change in the pandemic. We identify implications for crime theory, policy and future research.

Bhaktapur Tourism

Development in this age of sustainable development is sustainable development itself and tourism development is sustainable development of tourism. The present paper investigates the development of tourism from the socio economic indicators of sustainable tourism of Bhaktapur. Bhaktapur is an open museum and central hub of Tourism. To explore the Economic dimension of Bhaktapur Sustainable Tourism Development through Employment that focuses Number, type and duration of jobs, Gender equity, Business viability, Expenditure, Arrivals, Profitability, and Satisfaction. And to analyze the Social dimension of Bhaktapur Sustainable Tourism Development through Quality of Life that focuses Resident Empowerment, Congestion and crowding, Community attitudes to tourism, Access to amenities, and Changes in crime rate, the study has been conducted. The primary information is based on multiple sources of societal learning like field visits in course of doing researches, observation of various sites, General Household Questionnaire Survey, focus on group discussions, interactive seminars and a number of interactions and interviews with the experts of tourism sector in Bhaktapur. General Household Questionnaire Survey of purposively selected cluster of Dattatraya Square area was conducted on 157 households. Among five clusters Dattatrya Square was purposely selected for the study. Actual spending and length of stay of foreign tourists have been increasing in Nepal. Altogether from socio economic perspective 13 programsare recommended from the study to the local government of Bhaktapur Dattatrya. It needs around265 lakhs and timeline is not more than one year. Five times of these 13 projects and 265 lakhs can double the visitors in coming years.

COVID-19 WILL LEAD TO INCREASED CRIME RATES IN INDIA

The first ever Coronavirus outbreak was identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019 and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. The cases of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) are increasing exponentially around the globe. Various measures like Social Distancing, Complete lockdown and Curfew are seen in the likes of India, China, Italy among others. India, as a nation, got an opportunity to learn from their experiences and initiated a complete lockdown in the whole country until the end of April. The economies around the world got hit by such lockdowns due to which, as many economists predict, a recession seems inevitable. The unemployment rate will likely increase and people will be left with less disposable incomes, paving the way for an economic crisis. With the experience of major crisis in the past, we have noticed that the crime rates in and post such situations tend to increase. The situation with the law enforcement organization needs to be handled with care and caution if India and other countries hope to bounce back strongly. This paper has studied the past economic recessions and changes in crime rate during and post economic recovery. It also aims to enlist a variety of measures that the government of India is taking to fight the crisis arising due to COVID-19 along with some suggestions to control the situation afterwards.

Staying Home Saves Lives, Really!

As coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is spreading around the world, many national and local governments have imposed social restrictive measures to limit the spread of the virus. Such quarantine measures in different cities across the world have brought a new trend in public safety improvement and crime reduction. Using daily crime reports in the US and European major cities, the aim of this project is to evaluate the effects of quarantine and shelter-in-place policies on different crime categories. We adopt a difference in difference strategy to evaluate the change in crime rates. Early results from Oakland and San Francisco in the U.S. suggest a drop by about 40\% across the communities and crime categories in both cities. While theft, homicide, and traffic accidents have fallen sharply, domestic violence incidents show no sign of reduction from our early observations. These trends although promising a glimpse of positive outcome for the community during the outbreak, may not have a lasting impact in the long term.

The “New Fiscal Criminology”: State-Level Changes in Crime Rates and the Structure of Tax Systems

Prior research has examined the effects of social welfare on levels of crime in the U.S. The emphasis has been on how governmental support in the form of social spending may influence crime levels because it serves as a mechanism to lessen the impact of adverse financial circumstances that may stimulate criminal behavior. This study builds on prior research by assessing the impact of another mechanism that affects the distribution of economic resources: the structure of the tax system. Specifically, we incorporate the “Suits Index,” a novel measure of the progressivity of the tax system. Our analysis examines the effects of changes in the Suits Index on changes in robbery and burglary rates using data for the 50 U.S. states between 1995 and 2017. Results indicate that movement towards greater progressivity in the tax structure was associated with decreases in robbery and burglary rates, net of changes in social spending.

Immigration and Crime in Canadian Cities: A 35-Year Study

This study examines whether changes in immigration are associated with changes in crime rates in Canadian census metropolitan areas for the period 1976–2011. Using data from the Uniform Crime Reports and the Canadian census, this study employs fixed effects regression models to analyse the changes in immigration and crime rates during this 35-year period. Controlling for changes in demographic and socio-economic co-variates, overall changes in the proportion of the population that is foreign-born are either not significantly associated or negatively associated with changes in crime rates within Canadian cities. Overall, this article adds to the literature by using a longitudinal design within a Canadian urban context, employing multiple measures of immigration, and extending the analysis beyond one type of crime.

Is the recent increase in national homicide abnormal? Testing the application of fan charts in monitoring national homicide trends over time

PurposeThe goal of this study is to compare the increase in the 2015 national homicide rate to the historical data series and other violent crime rate changes. MethodsWe use ARIMA models and a one-step ahead forecasting technique to predict national homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault rates in the United States. Annual Uniform Crime Report data published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation are used in our analysis. ResultsThe 2015 homicide rate increased above the 90% prediction interval for our model, but not more conservative intervals. Predictions intervals for other national level crime rates consistently produced correct coverage using our forecasting approach. ConclusionsOur findings provide weak evidence that the national homicide rate spiked in 2015, though data for 2016–2018 do not show a continued anomalous increase in the U.S. homicide rate.