Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-1-2020

School

Criminal Justice, Forensic Science, and Security

Abstract

Copyright: © 2020 Borrion et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This paper uses resilience as a lens through which to analyse disasters and other major threats to patterns of criminal behaviour. A set of indicators and mathematical models are introduced that aim to quantitatively describe changes in crime levels in comparison to what could otherwise be expected, and what might be expected by way of adaptation and subsequent resumption of those patterns. The validity of the proposed resilience assessment tool is demonstrated using commercial theft data from the COVID-19 pandemic period. A 64 per cent reduction in crime was found in the studied city (China) during an 83-day period, before daily crime levels bounced back to higher than expected values. The proposed resilience indicators are recommended as benchmarking instruments for evaluating and comparing the global impact of COVID-19 policies on crime and public safety.

Publication Title

PLoS ONE

Volume

15

Issue

10 October

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