Crime and COVID-19: effect of changes in routine activities in Mexico City

Abstract

Background This study aimed to determine whether crime patterns in Mexico City changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to test whether any changes observed were associated with the disruption of routine activities, as measured by changes in public transport passenger numbers. Method The first objective was assessed by comparing the observed incidence of crime after the COVID-19 pandemic was detected in the country with that expected based on ARIMA forecasts based on the pre-pandemic trends. The second objective was assessed by examining the association between crime incidence and the number of passengers on public transport using regressions with ARIMA errors. Results Results indicated that most crime categories decreased significantly after the pandemic was detected in the country or after a national lockdown was instituted. Furthermore, the study found that some of the declines observed were associated with the reductions seen in public transport passenger numbers. However, the findings suggested that the changes in mobility explain part of the declines observed, with important variations per crime type. Conclusion The findings contribute to the global evaluation of the effects of COVID-19 on crime and propose a robust method to explicitly test whether the changes observed are associated with changes in routine activities.

Spatial Analysis of Gunshot Reports on Twitter in Mexico City

“…The decrease in shootings in Mexico City is consistent with the significant decrease in other types of crimes in the city during the pandemic, such as robberies of public transport [8], burglary and vehicle theft [9]. On an international level, this study coincides with the effects of the pandemic on crime: an overall decrease, as indicated by, for example, Shayegh and Malpede (2020) [23] in San Francisco, by Mohler et al (2020) [22] in Los Angeles and Indianapolis and by Campedelli (2020) [12] in Los Angeles.…”

“…As far as we know, there are still no empirical studies in Latin America that look at shootings in the region during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, there is a growing body of criminological research that studies the effects of the pandemic and the various restrictions imposed in the region on, for example, changes in crime pattens in Mexico City during the pandemic, such as crimes associated with public transport [8], burglary, vehicle theft [9], violence against women [37] and homicides [7]. There are also studies on problems related to prisons and the difficulties faced by various Latin American governments to resolve these [38,39].…”

“…In fact, there is a growing body of literature that studies the effects of COVID-19-related lockdowns on crime and violence [3][4][5][6]. Results vary according to the type of crime and location under study (and in some cases, on the empirical information available, such as that in Latin America [7][8][9]).…”

Offline crime bounces back to pre-COVID levels, cyber stays high: interrupted time-series analysis in Northern Ireland

“…In the UK, Halford et al ( 2020 ) analysed changes in crime in Lancashire during March 2020, and noted that, by the week of March 23rd, there had been a large decrease in shoplifting, theft, theft from vehicles, domestic abuse, assault and residential and non-residential burglary. Changes in recorded crime were also found in Sweden (Gerell et al, 2020 ), Mexico (Estévez-Soto, 2021 ), China (Borrion et al, 2020 ) and Australia (Payne et al, 2021 ). Nivette et al ( 2021 ) recorded crime data from 27 cities across 23 countries and concluded that stay-at-home orders contributed to a considerable global drop in urban crime.…”

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health calls for police service

“…Although evidence on the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is continuously building, research examining the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on calls for police service involving persons with perceived mental illness (PwPMI) is scant. 1 In fact, to-date, research examining the impacts of the pandemic on police-related activity has almost exclusively focused on crime (see e.g., Andresen & Hodgkinson, 2020 ; Ashby, 2020 ; Buil-Gil et al, 2020 ; Campedelli et al, 2020 ; Estévez-Soto, 2021 ; Felson et al, 2020 ; Gerell et al, 2020 ; Hodgkinson & Andresen, 2020 ; Langton et al, 2021 ; Payne et al, 2021 ; Piquero et al, 2021 ). While this area of inquiry is certainly important, crime only comprises approximately 20–30% of all police calls for service (Wuschke et al, 2017 ).…”