IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/rt2y4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Anti-social behaviour in the coronavirus pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Halford, Eric
  • Dixon, Anthony
  • Farrell, Graham

    (University of Leeds)

Abstract

Anti-social behaviour recorded by police more than doubled early in the coronavirus pandemic in England and Wales. This was a stark contrast to the steep falls in most types of recorded crime. Why was ASB so different? Was it changes in ‘traditional’ ASB such as noisy neighbours, or was it ASB records of breaches of COVID-19 regulations? Further, why did police-recorded ASB find much larger increases early in the pandemic than the Telephone Crime Survey for England and Wales? This study uses two approaches to address the issues. The first is a survey of police forces, via Freedom of Information requests, to determine whether covid-regulation breaches were recorded as ASB. The second is natural language processing (NLP) used to interrogate the text details of police ASB records. We find police recording practice varied greatly between areas. We conclude that the early-pandemic increases in recorded ASB were primarily due to breaches of covid regulations with around half of these also involving traditional forms of ASB. We also suggest that the study offers proof of concept that NLP may have significant potential to inform policing and crime policy globally.

Suggested Citation

  • Halford, Eric & Dixon, Anthony & Farrell, Graham, 2022. "Anti-social behaviour in the coronavirus pandemic," SocArXiv rt2y4, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:rt2y4
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/rt2y4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/6295ea92b7e8c72b53c2db6d/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/rt2y4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abrams, David S., 2021. "COVID and crime: An early empirical look," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    2. Gian Maria Campedelli & Serena Favarin & Alberto Aziani & Alex R. Piquero, 2020. "Disentangling Community-level Changes in Crime Trends During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Chicago," Papers 2011.05658, arXiv.org.
    3. Amy E. Nivette & Renee Zahnow & Raul Aguilar & Andri Ahven & Shai Amram & Barak Ariel & María José Arosemena Burbano & Roberta Astolfi & Dirk Baier & Hyung-Min Bark & Joris E. H. Beijers & Marcelo Ber, 2021. "A global analysis of the impact of COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions on crime," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(7), pages 868-877, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carlos Díaz & Sebastian Fossati & Nicolás Trajtenberg, 2022. "Stay at home if you can: COVID‐19 stay‐at‐home guidelines and local crime," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 1067-1113, December.
    2. Lydia Cheung & Philip Gunby, 2023. "The Initial and Dynamic Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Crime in New Zealand," Working Papers in Economics 23/03, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    3. Barron, Kai & Parry, Charles D.H. & Bradshaw, Debbie & Dorrington, Rob & Groenewald, Pam & Laubscher, Ria & Matzopoulos, Richard, 2022. "Alcohol, Violence and Injury-Induced Mortality: Evidence from a Modern-Day Prohibition," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Online Ea, pages 1-44.
    4. Kyriakos C. Neanidis & Maria P. Rana, 2023. "Crime in the era of COVID‐19: Evidence from England," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(5), pages 1100-1130, November.
    5. Roee Sarel, 2022. "Crime and punishment in times of pandemics," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 155-186, October.
    6. Ejrnæs, Anders & Scherg, Rune H., 2022. "Nightlife activity and crime: The impact of COVID-19 related nightlife restrictions on violent crime," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Randy Seepersad & Corin Bailey & Lina Marmolejo, 2023. "Social Solidarity and Crime: The COVID-19 Effect in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 39(4), pages 421-444, December.
    8. Xinyu Zhang & Peng Chen, 2023. "The Impact of Urban Facilities on Crime during the Pre- and Pandemic Periods: A Practical Study in Beijing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Payne, Jason L. & Langfield, Cameron T., 2021. "Drug offence detection during the pandemic: A spatiotemporal study of drug markets," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    10. Wolff, Kevin T. & Intravia, Jonathan & Baglivio, Michael T. & Piquero, Alex R., 2022. "Violence in the Big Apple throughout the COVID-19 pandemic: A borough-specific analysis," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Juan F Domínguez D & Johnny Truong & Jake Burnett & Lata Satyen & Hamed Akhlaghi & Julian Stella & Nick Rushworth & Karen Caeyenberghs, 2022. "Effects of the Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic on Assault-Related Head Injury in Melbourne: A Retrospective Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-19, December.
    12. Johnson, Shane & Nikolovska, Manja, 2022. "The effect of COVID-19 restrictions on routine activities and online crime," SocArXiv ze49b, Center for Open Science.
    13. Hodgkinson, Tarah & Andresen, Martin A. & Frank, Richard & Pringle, Darren, 2022. "Crime down in the Paris of the prairies: Spatial effects of COVID-19 and crime during lockdown in Saskatoon, Canada," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Vilalta, Carlos & Fondevila, Gustavo & Massa, Ricardo, 2022. "Virus containment measures and homicide in Mexico: An assessment of community strain theory," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    15. Enrique Garcia Tejeda, 2022. "La concentracion espacial de los reportes de disparos al 911 en la Ciudad de Mexico: ¿Comportamiento racional en el uso de armas durante la pandemia Covid-19?," Sobre México. Revista de Economía, Sobre México. Temas en economía, vol. 3(5), pages 69-93.
    16. Maurizio Malpede & Soheil Shayegh, 2022. "Staying home saves lives, really!," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 637-651, December.
    17. Miller, Amalia R. & Segal, Carmit & Spencer, Melissa K., 2022. "Effects of COVID‐19 shutdowns on domestic violence in US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    18. Carr, Joel & James, Jonathan & Clifton-Sprigg, Joanna & Vujic, Suncica, 2022. "Hate in the Time of COVID-19: Racial Crimes against East Asians," IZA Discussion Papers 15718, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Jesse Matheson & Brendon McConnell & James Rockey & Argyris Sakalis, 2023. "Do Remote Workers Deter Neighborhood Crime? Evidence from the Rise of Working from Home," Working Papers 2023020, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    20. Michele Battisti & Ilpo Kauppinen & Britta Rude, 2022. "Twitter and Crime: The Effect of Social Movements on GenderBased Violence," ifo Working Paper Series 381, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:rt2y4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.