With reopenings, might coming months bring big crime spike (and will modest jail and prison releases be blamed)?

The question in the title of this post is my pessimistic first thought in response to this optimistic New York Times article headlined "A Pandemic Bright Spot: In Many Places, Less Crime." Here are excerpts from the lengthy piece:

The absence of people during the coronavirus pandemic has produced a rare payoff in Fargo and most American cities — a steep drop in major crimes.  “The dynamics of street crimes, of street encounters, of human behavior are changing because people are staying home,” said Philip M. Stinson, a former police officer turned criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University.

Crime, say those who study it and those who fight it day to day, requires three things — a perpetrator, a victim and an opportunity.  With tens of millions of Americans off the streets, would-be victims and opportunities for crimes have vanished, causing a drop in the number of perpetrators committing infractions.  The dip in crime is compounded by the fact that some police departments have been hampered by quarantines, or have made fewer arrests to limit interactions or to avoid filling the jails.

Arrests in Chicago, where the Cook County jail became one of the nation’s largest-known virus hot spots, were down more than 73 percent during roughly the initial month of the lockdown, said Deputy Chief Thomas Lemmer of the Chicago Police Department.

Crime did not entirely disappear, of course, and some of the worst offenders remained undeterred.  Homicides in numerous cities remained flat or even rose. Burglaries of commercial properties and auto thefts have often multiplied, as criminals exploited shuttered stores and unattended cars.

Young men, considered the most violent demographic, have adopted a certain swagger in many places, police officers and criminologists said. With fewer witnesses around and with the police less likely to stop them, they feel less vulnerable to being caught. The men also find it easier to track down rival drug lords or gang leaders, who are mostly sheltering at home like everyone else.

In Las Vegas, where police said crime fell more than 22 percent during the initial two months of the lockdown, the Strip area, with its crowded nightclubs and bars, had traditionally had its problems with crime. Since it was largely devoid of tourists for weeks, crime migrated to some residential streets....

History indicates that hard times often reduce crime.  Chicago showed a marked drop in murders in 1918, when America faced the devastating Spanish flu, according to records analyzed by Leigh Bienen, a law professor at Northwestern University. After 293 killings in the city in 1917, the number fell to 260 in 1918 before rising to 345 the following year. The flu might not have been the only factor, she said.  Yet other municipalities also reported a decrease.

Crime rates similarly fell during the Great Depression that started in 1929, as well as during the 2008-9 recession, said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “That runs contrary to common perception that as misery spreads, crime rates should go up,” Dr. Rosenfeld said. “When there are fewer potential victims on the streets, there will be few potential crimes, regardless of the increases of the level of economic distress or misery.”...

For the month ending on May 17, most major crimes in New York City were down 21 percent from the same period last year, according to department statistics, although murders were unchanged, burglaries were up, and car thefts jumped almost 68 percent.  There were no clear patterns across all cities, according to Christopher Herrmann, a professor of law and police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Murders this year were up 14 percent in Philadelphia and 85 percent in Nashville but fell 2 percent in Baltimore and 11 percent in Atlanta.  Nashville was a rare city with increased crime over all....

Besides crime, many police departments reported that they are dealing with a higher number of drug overdoses and suicidal callers.  Police officers in Kalamazoo, Mich., responded to one overdose in December, said David Boysen, assistant chief for public safety.  In April, there were 26, and two of those people died.

One drop in crime statistics may actually be worrisome: Some cities indicated a decrease in both domestic abuse and child abuse calls.  The police in those cities said they suspected that abuse was actually more prevalent, given that most people are stuck at home.  But with no teachers to spot bruises in the classroom, and nowhere for people to escape their abusers, such crimes were less visible, they said.

With the country gradually reopening, experts wonder whether crime will rebound to its previous levels, as perpetrators and victims interact again.  Large American cities last experienced a sustained slide in crime for some 13 years after 1992, said Wesley G. Skogan, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University who studies police programs, calling the reasons “one of the great mysteries of the end of the 20th century.”

Dr. Herrmann, of John Jay College, has a paper set to be published this fall detailing how crime fell near a Bronx subway station during its reconstruction.  It took about two weeks after the station reopened for the numbers to rebound to previous levels, he said, but the post-lockdown rise will likely be slower because people are still hesitant about going outside.

Still, police officers are bracing for what happens next. “I don’t know what the future holds,” said Chris Bailey, assistant chief at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. “It makes me a little nervous from the crime perspective.”

It is nice to hear that crime has mostly been down during the pandemic, and this reality is especially notable because pre-pandemic crime rates were already relatively low (historically speaking).  But, in addition to highlighting how mixed (and mysterious?) the latest crime numbers are, I wanted this post to flag the real possibility that a crime spike could be coming soon.

Around this time of year under normal circumstances, crime tends to spike because of warmer weather.  This Governing article, looking at lots of crime data from a few years ago, reports: "On average, monthly crime for seven major offense types increased nearly 10 percent between June and August from the rest of the year."  In 2020, the we will have the coming usual summer crime spike combining with more people emerging from lockdown combining with police forces and other crime-fighting infrastructure returning to more normal operations.  These realities lead me to worry about a big crime spike over the next three months, particularly if and when compared to the crime decline over the last three month.

A crime spike is inherently bad for everyone, particularly victims.  But a crime spike in summer 2020 may also create extra challenges for criminal justice reform advocates eager to see decarceration efforts continue to gain momentum.  As this recent post from Michael Rushford at Crime & Consequences highlights, opponents of criminal justice reforms will be quick to try to pin any and all uptick in crimes on any and all decarceration efforts.

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