A DATA-DRIVEN ANALYSIS
Crime in Chicago Has Reached a Historic Low During Lockdown.
So why aren’t some neighborhoods seeing any change?
As the coronavirus pandemic was ramping up, people across the country grew concerned that panicked masses may soon begin looting homes and businesses and rioting in the streets.
But such a crime spree has not yet materialized. In fact, here in Chicago, just the opposite has taken place.
Since the lockdown began, we’ve seen incredible drops in reported crime across the city. While some local observers have glimpsed parts of this trend, none have put this moment in full historical context. When you do so, it becomes clear that we’re truly witnessing an unprecedented moment in Chicago crime history.
Yet, as is often the case in Chicago, this swift reduction in crime has not been shared equally across the whole city. Although some neighborhoods are suddenly seeing far less crime, many others are seeing virtually no change. Interestingly, however, crime isn’t changing along the socioeconomic lines we’ve come to expect in Chicago. This time, there’s a more complex pattern at work.
The data point to three simple facts that tell the full story.
1. Since the COVID-19 lockdown began, reported crime across Chicago has dropped to unprecedented levels.
For the first half of March 2020—before the shelter-in-place order seemed certain—there were an average of 603 reported crimes in Chicago per day. That’s 64 fewer crimes per day than we saw on average between 2015–2019, reflecting the fact that crime has been dropping year-over-year in Chicago.
So we could have reasonably expected that 2020 numbers would remain about 10% lower than the previous five-year average. For example, in the second half of March, there were an average of 688 crimes per day in previous years—so we might have expected around 610 this year.
Instead, we saw something very different.
In the days before Governor Pritzker issued the lockdown order on March 20, crime reports across the city began dropping dramatically. Since March 15, we’ve seen an average of 406 crimes per day.
That’s 40% less crime than expected.
A reduction like this is literally unprecedented, as far as we can tell.
This colorful and chaotic graph shows daily crime in Chicago for each day going all the way back to January 2001. The important part for our purposes is the dashed pink line jutting out from the bottom: that’s the last few weeks.
As you can see, we’ve only ever hit crime levels this low a few times since 2001. When it’s happened, it’s always been during blizzards or incredibly cold winter days, and always between November and February. But in the springtime, this level of crime is truly unprecedented: Never in the last 20 years—as far back as we have data—has reported crime ever reached this low in March or April.
Also unprecedented: Any time crime fell below 500 reports per day, it usually only did so for a day or two (since blizzards or extreme cold spells don’t tend to last long). This is the first time that it’s remained so low for a week straight.
2. But not all neighborhoods are seeing a significant decline.
So which parts of the city are enjoying this crime holiday, and which are not?
When we break down crime trends by community, a clearer picture emerges. For each of Chicago’s 77 defined community areas, I compared the total number of crimes reported in the last half of March 2020 to the average number reported over the same part of the year in 2015-2019.
Clearly downtown is seeing some of the most pronounced reductions. In the Loop and River North, there were at least 60% fewer crimes in late March this year compared to prior years. But it’s not exclusively downtown and the North Side — other pockets of the city, from Uptown to Pullman to Garfield Ridge, have also seen drops of at least 40%.
On the other hand, several pockets of Chicago have seen little or no reduction in crime. (Note: While a 1–19% drop might seem like a lot, keep in mind that crime totals have been gradually decreasing year-over-year across the city for many years. So smaller drops like this might have been expected even with no coronavirus.)
But, again, these less-affected pockets don’t follow any obvious geographic or socioeconomic pattern—they seem to be scattered around the city, from Lincoln Square, to Chicago Lawn, to South Shore.
What’s going on here? Is there a pattern underlying this seemingly sporadic distribution of crime trends? Yes—and it appears to involve which types of crimes are most prevalent in different neighborhoods.
3. …Because only certain kinds of crime are actually declining.
It turns out that not all crimes have decreased by the same degree.
In sheer quantity of crime, the biggest reduction has been in theft, followed by narcotics offenses and deceptive practice (which includes things like identity theft, credit card fraud, and counterfeiting). Each of these categories fell by at least 40% compared to the previous five-year average.
Put differently: If you remember from above, in the second half of March, we saw about 200 fewer crimes per day than we would expect. These three categories alone accounted for about two-thirds of the total drop.
There are a few likely explanations for this. First and foremost: Theft is the most common crime in the city to begin with, so we’d expect it to constitute much of the overall drop. On top of that, data reveal that the majority of thefts take place in either businesses (which are now shuttered) or residences (which are now more likely to be occupied, and thus harder to rob). As far as deceptive practice, it’s likely difficult to defraud someone or steal their identity when the victim is not working, shopping, or out in public. And two-thirds of narcotics offenses since 2015 have taken place on streets, sidewalks, or alleys; maybe now drug use and drug sales are moving into private spaces, where they’re much more difficult for police or witnesses to report.
On the other hand, crimes like assault and battery have changed relatively little, dropping by less than 20%.* Again, we can think of a plausible explanation: The data reveal that these crimes already tend to occur in people’s homes quite frequently, and the lockdown order presumably wouldn’t make those at-home incidents any less prevalent.
So how do these category-specific changes translate into the neighborhood differences we saw above?
Focusing on the community areas with the highest “baseline” crime levels, we see that they’re characterized by different kinds of crimes.
Again, most of the decline is coming from three categories: theft, deceptive practice, and narcotics. And we can see here that these crimes are a much bigger deal in some areas than in others. Theft and deceptive practice are especially common in the Loop and surrounding areas, while narcotics violations are quite prevalent in places like North Lawndale, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, but virtually absent in other neighborhoods.
Broadly speaking, the most significant drops have been in areas where these three kinds of crimes are more prevalent.
On the other hand, in places where these make up a relatively small portion of all crime, but things like assault and battery are more prevalent (e.g., Chicago Lawn, South Shore), reported crime has fallen considerably less, just as we’d expect.
The takeaway from the data: If your neighborhood tends to see lots of crimes that depend on businesses being open, crimes that are typically only reported when they occur in public, or crimes that can’t easily happen when everyone’s stuck at home, then you likely saw a substantial drop overall. But if you live in a neighborhood where other kinds of crime are more common, then you likely saw a much smaller drop.
*This brings up an important point: These numbers only speak to reported crime. So while fewer crimes are surely taking place, part of the drop also represents the fact that fewer crimes being reported, for a number of reasons. For example, experts say that domestic assault is likely escalating as people are stuck at home with abusive family members — but this kind of crime is highly likely to go unreported. The point is, we can only measure what we know about, so it’s likely that assault and battery have dropped by even less than the numbers let on.
