Druglords don't stay at home: COVID-19 pandemic and crime patterns in Mexico City

Jose Roberto Balmori de la Miyar; Lauren Hoehn-Velasco; Adan Silverio-Murillo

doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2020.101745

Druglords don't stay at home: COVID-19 pandemic and crime patterns in Mexico City

J Crim Justice. 2021 Jan-Feb:72:101745. doi: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2020.101745. Epub 2020 Sep 24.

Authors

Jose Roberto Balmori de la Miyar¹, Lauren Hoehn-Velasco², Adan Silverio-Murillo³

Affiliations

¹ Business and Economics School, Universidad Anahuac Mexico, Av. de las Torres 131, Olivar de los Padres, Mexico City 01780, Mexico.
² Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Mexico.
³ School of Government, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on conventional crime and organized crime in Mexico City, Mexico.

Methods: Mexico City's Attorney General's Office reported crime data, covering domestic violence, burglary, robbery, vehicle theft, assault-battery, homicides, kidnapping, and extortion. We use an event study for the intertemporal variation across the 16 districts (municipalities) in Mexico City for 2019 and 2020.

Results: We find a sharp decrease on crimes related to domestic violence, burglary, and vehicle theft; a decrease during some weeks on crimes related to assault-battery and extortion, and no effects on crimes related to robbery, kidnapping, and homicides.

Conclusions: While our results show a decline in conventional crime during the COVID- 19 pandemic, organized crime remains steady. These findings have policy implications for catastrophic events around the world, as well as possible national security issues in Mexico.

Keywords: COVID-19; Crime; Mexico; Organized crime.