The Risk Of Violent Street Crimes Rose By 40 Percent

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National Academy of Sciences: Violence in public places is increasing.  It could be a partial answer to record-setting fear of crime.

Traditional crime rates may present a misleading view of the recent changes in public safety.

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Public crimes are most concerning to citizens, especially those that are stranger-to-stranger violent crimes. Is public violence growing?

Some speculate that violence in public is an expanding problem. Data on the topic is difficult to find, thus the reason for this article. Media accounts of transit or street-related crimes are daily occurrences. Traditionally, most violence is residentially committed by people who know each other.

The National Academy of Sciences states that “The risk of victimization while a person was out in public rose by nearly 40% by April, 2020.”

It’s important to remember that reported violent crime decreased considerably during the 2020 COVID epidemic before increasing dramatically when COVID lockdowns were lifted. The number of homicides increased by nearly 30% in 2020. Violent crime was up 5.6 percent.

So a 40 percent increase in the risk of public violent crimes is concerning. The study states that the risk of violent street crime victimization was elevated throughout 2020 (emphasis added). Per the report, traditional crime rates may present a misleading view of the recent changes in public safety.

Per preliminary data from the FBI’s new National Incident-Based Reporting System (below), the most dangerous place for violence, by far, is in a residence. Schools (elementary-secondary) are fourth. Public paces account for the rest of the categories but not the majority of violence.

National Academy Of Sciences

Criminologists who examined crime trends between 2019 and 2020 found that people were more likely to be the victim of a violent crime while in public after March 2020 — than they had been in previous months.

Key takeaways from their research:

• The risk of victimization while a person was out in public rose by nearly 40% by April, 2020, even though the overall street crime rate nationwide had begun to decline (editor’s note-due to COVID lockdowns).
• The risk remained between 10 and 25% higher than it had been in 2019 during the remainder of 2020
• The criminologists used crime reporting data from Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York and merged it with anonymous cellphone location information to draw new conclusions about the trends

The researchers examined crime reporting data, national victimization survey results, and anonymized cellphone location information to show the places where people were being victimized over the study period.

“While analyses of traditional crime data show discrete drops in offending, we find that, in 2020, the risk of outdoor street crimes initially rose by more than 40% and was consistently between 10 and 25% higher than it had been in 2019 through the remainder of the year,” study authors Aaron Chalfin and Maxim Massenkoff wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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More From The National Academy Of Sciences Report 

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought massive disruptions to economic and social life, including an unprecedented spike in homicides. Overall crime, however, was down.

We resolve this apparent paradox by showing that after accounting for the fact that people were spending more time indoors in 2020, the risk of victimization in public actually increased. These recent changes in crime and activity provide a stark illustration of how conventional crime rates can fail to capture changes in public safety (emphasis added). 

This paper argues that changes in human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unusual divergence between crime rates and victimization risk in US cities. Most violent crimes declined during the pandemic. However, analysis using data on activity shows that the risk of street crime victimization was elevated throughout 2020.

People in public spaces were 15 to 30% more likely to be robbed or assaulted. This increase is unlikely to be explained by changes in crime reporting or selection into outdoor activities by potential victims.

Traditional crime rates may present a misleading view of the recent changes in public safety.

National Academy Of Sciences