"The Impact of COVID-19 on Crime, Arrests, and Jail Populations - An Expansion on the Preliminary Assessment"
The title of this post is the title of this new expanded report on COVID impacts on some critical criminal justice metrics. Here is the 20+ page report's executive summary:
Beginning in March 2020, local and state criminal agencies took several actions to mitigate the rising number of people being infected with the COVID-19 virus. To address these concerns, a variety of policies were enacted to reduce the number of persons held in jails. These polices were designed to 1) mitigate the number of people being arrested and booked into local jails and 2) reduce the length of stay (LOS) for those admitted to jail. Concurrently, public safety concerns were raised that by lowering the jail populations, crime in the community would increase.
To address these concerns, the JFA Institute (JFA), through resources provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) program, began tracking and analyzing six cities and counties participating in SJC (jurisdictions) and their jail and crime data in real time to monitor the impact of these mitigation activities. In October 2020, JFA expanded the study to eleven jurisdictions and collected the data through December 2020 to examine longer term trends and a potential rebound.
Analysis of the eleven jurisdictions:
• Analysis of the eleven jurisdictions studied revealed jail populations declined, yet crime and arrests declined as well, giving indication that declining jail populations did not compromise public safety.
• Overall, total reported crime was 22% lower in December 2020 when compared to December 2019 and 14% lower for the total number of reported crimes for CY 2020 versus CY 2019.
• When combining all jurisdictions, there was an average 39% decrease in jail bookings, which equates to over 130,000 fewer jail bookings in a one-year time frame. Jail booking decreases were fueled by the decrease in property crime and arrests, primarily for misdemeanor and lower-level felony charges.
• As a result of the change in jail bookings, the composition of the jail populations changed postCOVID-19, with a higher proportion being male and charged with violent felony and non-drug felony crimes.
• The LOS for people in jail has increased due to the changing make-up of the jail populations and a slowdown in court case processing.
• After the historic initial decrease, jail populations rebounded somewhat but stabilized in October 2020. During this time, there was no substantial increase in overall crime.
There are challenges ahead in keeping jail populations low, namely maintaining lower arrests, jail bookings, and reducing the length of stay by expediting the disposition of criminal cases. The response to COVID-19 has shown that such reforms are possible and can safely reduce the number of persons held in jail but sustaining lower jail populations will require maintaining these reforms in some manner.
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