New York on Pause, Crime on Hold

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly changed American’s lives in the spring of 2020 with stay-at-home (SAH) orders. COVID-19 significantly impacted crime rates related to domestic violence. I used crimes per week in the categories of rape, general sex crimes, child crimes, and the total of those three to assess the change in crimes relating to domestic violence. There was a decrease of reported crimes in 2020 as compared to the base year 2019, with a 42.84%, or 13.19, decrease in crimes per week total across the different crime categories. Each borough also had significant increases or decreases in crime based on their relative population. The boroughs with higher populations showed higher levels of crimes per week. Overall, the effect of SAH orders had minor impacts on crimes per week. When they were significant, they showed a decrease of 0.248 total crimes per week for every week since the SAH order started. There is still a distinct possibility that crime is still occurring but is unreported; however, the evidence is clear that police departments have less reports after a SAH order is put in place.