This summer we started thinking about the differential impact of the pandemic... Of curiosity and given the lack of good data visualisations online we mapped out some statistics on furlough and the claimant count... (thread) 1/6 https://twitter.com/CEP_LSE/status/1339472972927668226

Naturally as crime economists, we started wondering whether Covid, and its impact in the economy would have effects in criminal outcomes that we could trace in near-real time. The high availability of public data in England & Wales helped us turn curiosity into this analysis! 2/6

A worrying finding is that the high (and rising) inequality is starting to manifest itself in the distribution of crime. Areas which entered the pandemic with higher claimant rates now have higher levels of violent crime (controlling for area characteristics, and time trends) 3/6

They also haven't experienced the same decrease in many acquisitive crime as most of the country. In poorer areas criminals find their way to keep burglaries and shoplifting at (almost!) pre-pandemic rates. 4/6

The key findings are: 1) there are wide disparities in the impact of the pandemic. 2) these economic outcomes correlate with crime trends. 3) a number of high-risk areas are at risk of entering difficult loop of poverty and crime 5/6

This is an interactive map on the economic impact of the pandemic if you are curious too! https://benjamingebert.carto.com/builder/528add57-e851-44cd-89f1-33e21c3eaee9/embed 6/6