New York City: COVID-19 quarantine and crime
Journal of Criminal Psychology
ISSN: 2009-3829
Article publication date: 18 May 2021
Issue publication date: 3 August 2021
Abstract
Purpose
In early 2020, the world faced a rapid life-changing pandemic in the form of the Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. Citywide lockdowns with stay-at-home orders and mass closings quickly became the “new normal.” With these new mandates, routine activity, mental health and financial securities all began to experience major deviations, and it became clear that this could prove to be rather valuable in providing the opportunity for large-scale criminology experiments. This study aims to explore New York City's (NYC) crime patterns during this unique social situation. Specifically, has crime as a whole increased or decreased, and have particular crimes increased or decreased during these stressful fluid times?
Design/methodology/approach
The authors briefly review previous crises and worldwide trends but focus on NYC crime as collected by the New York Police Department's statistics unit, “CompStat.” An analysis of 13 crime types from March 30 to July 5 was completed, including percent differences and individual weekly incidence rates in citywide crimes compared to the same time in 2019.
Findings
The analysis demonstrated that all crimes analyzed, except for murder and burglary, exhibited a statistically significant difference during COVID-19 conditions compared to the same time the previous year. Grand larceny auto and gun violence crimes significantly increased during COVID-19 weeks, whereas rape, other sex crimes, robbery, felony assault, grand larceny, transit, housing, misdemeanor assault and petit larceny all significantly decreased.
Originality/value
Due to the ongoing nature of the pandemic, this is amongst the first studies to examine trends in NYC crime during pandemic mandates. Expanding our knowledge in these situations can inform natural disaster responses, as well as criminal justice policy and practice to better protect the public in future crises.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the remarkable Audrey Esposito for her insightful comments that sparked the research questions of this study, and for continuing to provide valuable advice, as always, throughout the development process. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank Dr Robert Louden for his contributions of suggested resources throughout the process. And finally, but certainly not least, the authors would like to thank the NYPD for providing them and the public with the invaluable crime statistics of the Compstat Unit.
Citation
Esposito, M.M. and King, A. (2021), "New York City: COVID-19 quarantine and crime", Journal of Criminal Psychology, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 203-221. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCP-10-2020-0046
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited