
Coronavirus and Crime – what the Covid is happening in SF? - ddispaltro
https://www.goodcover.com/blog/coronavirus-and-crime-what-the-covid-is-happening-in-sf/
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lacker
Seems like this article is reading too much into noise in the data. The “hot
prowls” are up since March, but down since February. That doesn’t really make
sense as an explanation for “why there is noticeably more X since the
pandemic”.

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rsj_hn
I think the most obvious explanation is that 1) lots of stores are closed and
boarded up, and 2) Since we don't pursue property crimes under a thousand
dollars and often more than that, people don't bother calling the police, so
their experience of crime begins to differ from the crime stats. Those are the
cases of people walking into Walgreens, grabbing stuff, and walking out. A
crime was still committed, but no one called the police since they know they
wouldn't do anything, so it doesn't show up in the crime stats. Lots of people
don't bother calling the police for things like car breakins for the same
reason. If there's no benefit to you and it takes time, then why do it?

One interesting way to test this is to look at NCVS (surveys of random people
asking if they were the victims of crime) versus crime stats as reported by
police departments. In about 2 years the 2020 data will be out, and then we
can see whether the push in places like SF to decriminalize property crime
resulted in an increase or decrease in property crimes in the victimization
survey, but you can't really judge reported crime stats by police departments
when they are under a do not pursue mandate. This would give us a more
rigorous approach than looking at a sample of nextdoor posts.

