Geographic disparities in violent crime during the COVID-19 lockdown in Miami-Dade County, Florida, 2018–2020

Abstract

Objectives This study uses two cluster detection techniques to identify clusters of violent crime during the 3 months of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown in Miami-Dade County compared to that during an equivalent period in 2018 and 2019. Methods Violent crime data from the Miami-Dade Central Records Bureau were analyzed. The Local Indicators of Spatial Association statistics and a space‐time permutation statistic were used to identify clusters of violent crimes and outliers, and Global Moran’s I tool was used to assess spatial patterning in violent crime. Neighborhood disadvantage data were obtained from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates linked with arrest locations. Results Violent crime arrests fell by 7.1% in 2020. Arrests were concentrated in predominantly Black disadvantaged neighborhoods in the northern part, and similar results were produced for core clusters by the two cluster techniques with positive global Moran’s I for all study years. Although accounting for only 17% of the county population, nearly half of violent crime arrests were for Black or African American. Males comprised most violent crime arrests. Conclusions Crime prevention and intervention efforts should be focused on both high-risk places and offenders.

In a world called catastrophe: the impact of COVID-19 on neighbourhood level crime in Vancouver, Canada

“…These results are consistent with the routine activity approach in that depending on how the pandemic changes opportunity structures, different crime types will be affected in different ways. Moise and Piquero ( 2021 ), as with other research, found a decrease in violent crime during the first 3 months of the pandemic in Miami-Dade County, Florida. More interesting, however, is that these authors, using two clustering techniques, found that, consistent with criminological research, prior to the pandemic, largely African American areas with high socio-economic disadvantage had clusters of violent crime.…”

“…Campedelli et al ( 2020b ) and Moise and Piquero ( 2021 ) are the only known research studies to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on crime at the community, or neighbourhood, level. Considering communities across Chicago, IL, Campedelli et al ( 2020b ) found that predictors varied for their explanatory power of where decreases in crime (burglary, assault, narcotics and robbery) occurred.…”

A Case Study of Domestic Violence Arrests during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Miami-Dade County

“…Last, although most of Florida and Miami-Dade County have been open without lockdowns, it will be important to continue to track domestic violence moving forward, especially because people -especially (undocumented) immigrants-continue to feel the pain and anxiety associated with bleak gainful employment prospects and vaccine rollouts. It will also be of interest to explore the potential geographical variability in the patterning of domestic violence in future research, especially because extant research has shown such geographic differences within cities by crime type during the COVID-19 era (Campedelli et al, 2020;Moise & Piquero, 2021).…”

Crime and deviance during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Further, research has found that arrests for violent crime tend to be concentrated in Black disadvantaged neighborhoods during the pandemic (Moise & Piquero, 2021 ). The disproportionate arrests and mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities by the criminal justice system is an ongoing problem in the U.S. as well as globally (Toure et al., 2021 ).…”