The heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on crime across the world

There is a vast literature evaluating the empirical association between stay-at-home policies and crime dur‑ ing the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these academic eforts have primarily focused on the efects within specifc cities or regions rather than adopting a cross-national comparative approach. Moreover, this body of literature not only generally lacks causal estimates but also has overlooked possible heterogeneities across diferent lev‑ els of stringency in mobility restrictions. This paper exploits the spatial and temporal variation of government responses to the pandemic in 45 cities across fve continents to identify the causal impact of strict lockdown policies on the number of ofenses reported to local police. We fnd that cities that implemented strict lockdowns expe‑ rienced larger declines in some crime types (robbery, burglary, vehicle theft) but not others (assault, theft, homi‑ cide). This decline in crime rates attributed to more stringent policy responses represents only a small proportion of the efects documented in the literature.

Keywords

COVID-19, Cross-national, Strict lockdown, Crime, Synthetic control

Citation

Crime Science. 2024 Aug 22;13(1):22

URI

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-024-00220-y
https://repositorio.uc.cl/handle/11534/87696

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