Good question. Here's an excellent paper that dives into the question of what happened in 2015: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/249895.pdf. The big difference between 2015 and 2020 was that the 2015 spike was pretty concentrated in a few cities. The 2020 spike is in cities and suburbs, big and small. It's much broader and deeper.
> For an explanation for the homicide spike to hold, it must be true everywhere, for almost everyone—homicide spiked in cities, suburbs, and exurbs, in cities with red mayors and blue mayors. This explanation does.
Does this analysis hold for other countries or is US an outlier in homicide spike?
The timing, duration, and severity of covid mitigation measures like lockdown orders and school closures differed significantly between cities and states. If "everyone was at home because of covid" is the causal factor, then should that be pretty evident in the time series data?
Curious how you explain the identical phenomenon after the Ferguson MO shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. Murder up, crime overall and violent crime both down; no pandemic closures; murder remained elevated for a few years afterwards.
Good question. Here's an excellent paper that dives into the question of what happened in 2015: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/249895.pdf. The big difference between 2015 and 2020 was that the 2015 spike was pretty concentrated in a few cities. The 2020 spike is in cities and suburbs, big and small. It's much broader and deeper.
Yes, totally agree. And child welfare cases as well. Hopefully, the data are available shortly and we can sort this out more thoroughly.
I want this to be the answer.
> For an explanation for the homicide spike to hold, it must be true everywhere, for almost everyone—homicide spiked in cities, suburbs, and exurbs, in cities with red mayors and blue mayors. This explanation does.
Does this analysis hold for other countries or is US an outlier in homicide spike?
The timing, duration, and severity of covid mitigation measures like lockdown orders and school closures differed significantly between cities and states. If "everyone was at home because of covid" is the causal factor, then should that be pretty evident in the time series data?
Curious how you explain the identical phenomenon after the Ferguson MO shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. Murder up, crime overall and violent crime both down; no pandemic closures; murder remained elevated for a few years afterwards.
Thanks for this logical analysis. The causal analysis you paint suggests that domestic violence of all types should have also risen.