The shutdown of services facility during COVID-19 pandemic:How it affects violent crimes
The suppression of high-incidence crime is a crucial aspect of ensuring national social security.Additionally,the COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control measures have served as a large-scale"natural experiment"in crime prevention,which has also affected the operational status of various service facilities in cities,potentially leading to changes in the daily activities of criminals.This research tries to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics and clustering changes of violent crimes in ZG city during the"pre-pandemic"and"in-pandemic"periods by using STL time series decomposition and local differential Moran's index methods.Meanwhile,based on theories of routine activities and social disorganization,it adopts negative binomial regression models to explore the impact of service facility shutdown under the background of epidemic prevention and control on violent crimes.Additionally,a geographically weighted Poisson regression model is used to analyze the spatial heterogeneity of the impact of service facilities.The findings are:(1)The total number of violent crimes in ZG city showed an overall downward trend.Specifically,the number of violent crimes declined slowly in the"pre-pandemic"period,while it dropped sharply during the"in-pandemic"period.(2)Violent crimes in ZG city exhibited obvious clustering characteristics in both the"pre-pandemic"and"in-pandemic"periods,but the crime hotspots changed significantly between the two periods.The hotspots were concentrated in the central urban area in both periods,but compared with the"pre-pandemic"period,the area and dispersion of hotspots increased substantially during the"in-pandemic"period.(3)Based on the local differential Moran's index,this study detected the characteristics of changes in violent crimes before and during the pandemic.The results show that during the"in-pandemic"period,the central urban area of ZG city became a contiguous region where violent crimes decreased,forming a"low-low clustering area",while its surrounding areas became contiguous regions where violent crimes increased,forming a"high-high clustering area".(4)Compared with the"pre-pandemic"period,this study has verified that the impact of various service facilities on violent crimes has been weakened during the"in-pandemic"period.For example,the promoting effects of restaurants,commercial streets,and cybercafés on violent crimes decreased,and the inhibitory effects of bus stations and schools on violent crimes also weakened.Finally,it was further found that restaurants and bus stations were more affected by the COVID-19 lockdown policies,and the number and spatial distribution of normally operating restaurants and bus stations changed substantially compared with the"pre-pandemic"period,thereby reducing violent crimes.
violent crimesservices facilitycrime changesCOVID-19 pandemicZG city
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
