The policy lessons learned from the criminal justice system response to COVID‐19

Violence in the Big Apple throughout the COVID-19 pandemic: A borough-specific analysis

“…Furthering the importance of focusing on shootings is the record-breaking 44,824 gun-related violence deaths in the U.S. in 2020 ( Gun Violence Archive, 2021 ). Additionally, as discussed by Piquero (2021) , pandemic-related changes in crime trends are intertwined with the concurrent aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and ensuing racial justice protests. Finally, as extant research has pointed to the importance of unique crime patterning during the COVID-era within cities, it is possible that the association between these events and the incidence of violence may vary between the five unique boroughs that comprise NYC, a possibility that we highlight below.…”

“…Thus, studying changes in criminal behavior—as well as system response to these twin pandemics—cannot be divorced from one another (cf. Piquero, 2021 ).…”

“…Positive daily COVID-19 case counts, initial and subsequent lockdown restrictions, and daily temperature affected violence in NYC. While researchers continue to uncover impacts of the public health emergency and related restrictions brought on by the pandemic, including on crime on violence, the gravity and size of the social unrest following the killing of George Floyd must be considered in tandem to elucidate the drivers of such changes (see Piquero, 2021 ). The current study demonstrates many consistent impacts of both pandemic-related factors and governmental policies and impacts of extensive social unrest in NYC, yet illuminates differences across boroughs, showing violence in some boroughs is at times contradictory to the overall citywide trends and that changes in a single borough may be driving changes in city level trends.…”

“…Regarding crime in the U.S. in particular, police departments across the country altered tactics and policies ( Jennings & Perez, 2020 ), often deemphasizing arrests of some types of non-violent crimes, such as minor drug offenses ( Melamed & Newall, 2020 ; Sisak, Bleiberg, & Dazio, 2020 ), while court processes slowed, judicial caseloads backed up, and criminal justice policies were created aimed at early release and slowing the influx of new inmates into jails and prisons as viral infections spread rapidly throughout custodial facilities ( Piquero, 2021 ). Stay-at-home orders and other governmental restrictions/mandates likely further affected the prevalence of specific crime types as citizens' daily activities were dramatically altered, consistent with expectations from Cohen and Felson's (1979) routine activity theory.…”

The impact of the pandemic on probation: lessons for the future

“…That probation services were able – in some countries – to play a pivotal role in processes of decarceration, ensuring that people who would ordinarily be in prison would be safe in the community points to the possibility of using probation to shrink the net of imprisonment. Indeed, Piquero (2021) argues that analysis of recidivism rates for those people who left prison early will probably show that “that the net of incarceration could be shortened – and not widened – with little adverse impact on public safety”. The risk here is that we widen the net of punishment, end up with fewer people in prison and assume that this is satisfactory.…”