Coronavirus has ‘massive’ impact on US crime rates: Here are some of the big changes

People are staying home more and going out less, which helps explain why crime rates have mostly declined across the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania.

Data shows that crime was immediately impacted by coronavirus lockdowns, David Abrams, professor of law, business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in his report “COVID and Crime: Key Findings.”

“Across almost all of the cities examined, crime fell a tremendous amount — to overall levels over 23% below the average of the same time period in the previous 5 years,” Abrams wrote.

Some cities, however, did see increases in property thefts — including vehicles and commercial buildings — the report shows.

Abrams collected data on crime incidents, arrests. shootings, police stops, jail populations, COVID-19 cases and mobility from 25 U.S. cities, from Austin to Denver to Philadephia, according to a website created by Abrams.

Abrams also used data collected at the community level by Google Community Mobility Reports.

It’s important to note that the data Abrams collected comes from “reported crimes,” which may explain some of the decline, the report says.

“People have reacted to the pandemic in all sorts of ways in decreasing economic activity,” Abrams told NPR. “They stopped going to work, they stopped driving their car. They stopped walking around the city, and crime also stopped.”

The cities that saw the biggest drop in crime rates were Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington D.C., the report says.

Drug crimes

Drug crimes declined the most — over 63% compared to previous years, according to Abrams’ report.

Arrest data from Austin showed that drug crimes started to drop in March, rose slightly after stay-at-home orders were issued, then fell again in April, Abrams’ website shows. In February, before the pandemic really took hold, Austin’s drug crime rate was substantially higher than the maximum amount seen between 2003 and 2019.

Austin’s drug crime rate hit a 16-year low in early July, data shows. Abrams noted in his report that Boston saw a similar trend.

Property crime

Overall, property crimes declined by 19%, the second largest drop, according to Abrams. But while home burglaries fell, commercial burglaries rose, the report says.

“As the pandemic hit, people began spending far more time at home,” Abrams wrote. “We can see one result of this is the large decline in residential burglaries as in Philadelphia.”

As people stayed home during lockdown, fewer eyes were on commercial properties, the report says. That allowed opportunists to burglarize non-residential buildings by almost 30% more on average across the analyzed cities, according to Abrams.

Car thefts rose dramatically in some cities — Austin, Denver, Los Angeles and Philadephia — , but this wasn’t the case across the board, the report shows. Baltimore, for example, saw a significant decrease in car thefts, according to Abrams analysis.

“So if people are leaving cars on the street, they have no need to use them,” Abrams told NPR. “They aren’t checking on them as frequently. There’s also just less foot traffic around and fewer people to observe. I think that makes for more attractive targets for would-be thieves.”

Philadelphia saw a “massive spike” in car theft, according to Abrams. The city’s car theft rate rose 2.5 times higher than before the pandemic hit, the report shows.

Los Angeles saw car thefts skyrocket in the second quarter of 2020, Crosstown reported. Crosstown collects and analyzes community-level data in LA.

Data from the Los Angeles Police Department showed that 5,744 vehicles were stolen between April and June — a 57.7% increase from the same time period in 2019, according to Crosstown.

Violent crime

The violent crime rate overall fell 15%, Abrams reported, although homicides and shootings have held steady.

Abrams analyzed homicides and shootings with a control for seasonality — “there are always more shootings and homicides as the weather gets warmer in the spring and summer,” the report says.

Aggravated assault dropped by an average of 13% and robbery fell by about 15% in most cities, the report says. Violent crimes are impacted in at least two ways as fewer people are out during the pandemic, according to Abrams.

“There are fewer targets, and there is also less chance of being observed and reported,” Abrams wrote.

Police stops

Police also stopped fewer people in vehicles and on the streets right when the pandemic hit, especially in Chicago, L.A. and Philadelphia, the report says.

In Chicago and L.A., the number of stops decreased by about one-third compared to rates before stay-at-home orders, according to the report. Stops fell by over 50% in Philadelphia, the report shows.

“This certainly reflects the fact that more people were staying home, and likely also changes to policing practices,” Abrams wrote.

While the demographics of those who were stopped by police didn’t change much in most cities, the number of Black people stopped in Philadelphia rose substantially, according to the report.

“This may reflect the fact that essential workers in Pennsylvania are more likely to be Black,” Abrams wrote.