The pandemic lockdown has produced a rare payoff in many cities: a steep drop in major crimes. Police Chief David Todd of Fargo, N.D., made a short movie illustrating the trend. “The quiet and sadness is something that we have never experienced before,” Todd told the New York Times. “I thought we should try to capture this, where we are right now, not just our community, but our nation as a whole.” Criminologist Philip Stinson of Bowling Green University said, “The dynamics of street crimes, of street encounters, of human behavior are changing because people are staying home.” Crime requires a perpetrator, a victim and an opportunity. With tens of millions off the streets, would-be victims and opportunities for crimes have vanished.
Arrests in Chicago dropped 73 percent during the first month of the lockdown. Still, homicides totals in many cities remained flat or rose. Burglaries of commercial properties and auto thefts multiplied, as criminals exploited shuttered stores and unattended cars. Young men have adopted a swagger in many places. With fewer witnesses and with the police less likely to stop them, they feel less vulnerable to being caught. “Gang members are certainly the part of society that goes out and looks for trouble and is trouble,” said Andrew Walsh of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. History indicates that hard times often reduce crime. Chicago showed a marked drop in murders during the 1918 Spanish flu. After 293 killings in 1917, the number fell to 260 in 1918 before rising to 345 in 1919. With the U.S. reopening, experts wonder whether crime will rebound to its previous levels. Large cities last experienced a sustained slide in crime for some 13 years after 1992, said Northwestern University criminologist Wesley Skogan, calling the drop “one of the great mysteries of the end of the 20th century.”
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May 26, 2020 at 06:37PM
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Crime Fell During Pandemic; Will It Rebound? - Crime Report
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