The Impact of COVID-19 on Crime: A Study from the Spatial-temporal Perspective in the Montgomery County, AL

Long Ma, Connor Wu

2022

Abstract

The policies curbing the spread of COVID-19 can influence the chance of committing a crime. This study aimed to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the spatial and temporal patterns of crime in Montgomery City, AL, by wavelet analysis, spatial point test, and machine learning tools. We obtained the crime case records between January 1, 2015 to March 12, 2021 from the police department in the City of Montgomery, and we downloaded demographical data from the U.S. Census. Results show that the overall crime rate in Montgomery decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, crime rates would increase in a shorter time than COVID-19 confirmed cases when the social activities increased. Meanwhile, spatial distributions of simple assault, burglary, and vehicle theft had clustered in Montgomery business and shopping areas. These findings are helpful for the police institution in preventing and minimizing crimes as new COVID-19 variants emerge in the future.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Ma L. and Wu C. (2022). The Impact of COVID-19 on Crime: A Study from the Spatial-temporal Perspective in the Montgomery County, AL. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, ISBN 978-989-758-547-0, pages 532-539. DOI: 10.5220/0010856700003116

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icaart22,
author={Long Ma and Connor Wu},
title={The Impact of COVID-19 on Crime: A Study from the Spatial-temporal Perspective in the Montgomery County, AL},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART,},
year={2022},
pages={532-539},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010856700003116},
isbn={978-989-758-547-0},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART,
TI - The Impact of COVID-19 on Crime: A Study from the Spatial-temporal Perspective in the Montgomery County, AL
SN - 978-989-758-547-0
AU - Ma L.
AU - Wu C.
PY - 2022
SP - 532
EP - 539
DO - 10.5220/0010856700003116