Spillover effect on crime during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the Czech Republic

• Název práce v češtině: Spillover efekty kriminality během lockdownů při pandemii COVID-19 v České republice
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Spillover effect on crime during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the Czech Republic
• Klíčová slova: prostorová regrese, kriminalita, COVID-19
• Klíčová slova anglicky: spatial regression, crime, COVID-19
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2021/2022
• Typ práce: bakalářská práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Institut ekonomických studií (23-IES)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Mgr. Vojtěch Mišák
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno vedoucím/školitelem
• Datum přihlášení: 01.09.2022
• Datum zadání: 01.09.2022
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 12.09.2023 09:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: Opletalova, O206, místnost. č. 206
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 31.07.2023
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 12.09.2023
• Oponenti: PhDr. Jiří Schwarz, Ph.D.

Seznam odborné literatury

Core literature

Campedelli, G.M., Aziani, A. & Favarin, S. 2021. "Exploring the Immediate Effects of COVID-19 Containment Policies on Crime: an Empirical Analysis of the Short-Term Aftermath in Los Angeles." American Journal of Criminal Justice 46, 704–727. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09578-6
Halford, E., Dixon, A., Farrell, G. et al. 2020. "Crime and coronavirus: social distancing, lockdown, and the mobility elasticity of crime. " Crime Science 9, 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-020-00121-w
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Geography Department. 2021. "Spatial regression in R." Quantitative Methods for Geographers. https://pages.cms.hu-berlin.de/EOL/gcg_quantitative-methods/Lab15_SpatialRegression.html
Lydia Cheung, Philip Gunby. 2022. "Crime and mobility during the COVID-19 lockdown: a preliminary empirical exploration." New Zealand Economic Papers 56:1, 106-113. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00779954.2020.1870535
Nivette, A.E., Zahnow, R., Aguilar, R. et al. 2021. "A global analysis of the impact of COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions on crime." Nature Human Behaviour 5, 868–877. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01139-z
Perez-Vincent, SM, Schargrodsky, E, Garcia Mejía, M. 2021. "Crime under lockdown: The impact of COVID-19 on citizen security in the city of Buenos Aires." Criminol Public Policy 20, 463– 492. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12555
Yichen SHEN, Rong FU, Haruko NOGUCHI. 2021. "COVID-19’s Lockdown and Crime Victimization: The State of Emergency under the Abe Administration." Waseda University, Asian Economic Policy Review 16, 327–348. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/aepr.12339?casa_token=ijAmmrkZTLwAAAAA:KIUXwg6I5AdT0ZHIC6BIAQ1A7vYnrtSABtAykUV3YznX9Qz8Ni6M8AZ1y8hTWqmZwvKOlJeOkrOCbug

Supplementary literature

Fergusson, D.M. and Horwood, L.J. 2000. "Alcohol abuse and crime: a fixed-effects regression analysis." Addiction 95, 1525-1536. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2000.951015257.x
Government of the Czech Republic. 2021. " USNESENÍ VLÁDY ČESKÉ REPUBLIKY ze dne 26. února 2021 č. 216 o přijetí krizového opatření." Vlada.cz. https://apps.odok.cz/attachment/-/down/IHOABYLUPWWU
Government of the Czech Republic. 2021. " USNESENÍ VLÁDY ČESKÉ REPUBLIKY ze dne 18. března 2021 č. 299 o přijetí krizového opatření." Vlada.cz. https://www.vlada.cz/assets/media-centrum/aktualne/omezeni-volneho-pohybu-0299.pdf
Ministerstvo vnitra ČR, odbor bezpečnostní politiky. 2022. "Zpráva o situaci v oblasti vnitřní bezpečnosti a veřejného pořádku na území České republiky v roce 2021." Ministerstvo vnitra České republiky. https://www.mvcr.cz/soubor/zprava-o-situaci-v-oblasti-verejneho-poradku-a-vnitrni-bezpecnosti-na-uzemi-ceske-republiky-v-roce-2021.aspx
Mišák, V. 2022. "Crime and weather. Evidence from the Czech Republic." IES Working Papers 9/2022. IES FSV. Charles University.
Moravčík, O. 2022. "Vývoj registrované kriminality v roce 2021." Policie České republiky. https://www.policie.cz/clanek/vyvoj-registrovane-kriminality-v-roce-2021.aspx
Okuhara Tsuyoshi, Okada Hiroko, Kiuchi Takahiro. 2020. "Predictors of Staying at Home during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Social Lockdown based on Protection Motivation Theory: A Cross-Sectional Study in Japan." Healthcare 8, 475. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346852427_Predictors_of_Staying_at_Home_during_the_COVID-19_Pandemic_and_Social_Lockdown_based_on_Protection_Motivation_Theory_A_Cross-Sectional_Study_in_Japan
Sachsida, A., de Mendonça, M.J.C., Loureiro, P.R.A. et al. 2010. "Inequality and criminality revisited: further evidence from Brazil." Empirical Economics 39, 93–109. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-009-0296-4

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

Research question and motivation
The purpose of this thesis is to estimate the effect of lockdowns on crime spillovers in the Czech Republic.
At the end of February 2021, Covid-19 had been spreading across the whole country. The government of the Czech Republic faced this problem by applying a nationwide lockdown, which brought severely limiting movement across districts (Resolutions of the Government No. 216 of February 26, 2021, and No. 299 of March 18, 2021). This situation lasted from March 1, 2021, to April 11, 2021. Did this solution bring a reduction in spillovers of crime through different districts as a side effect? Are there any differences among districts or within different crime categories?
The recorded crime rate has been diminishing in the Czech Republic in recent years. However, the damage caused by criminal activity was increasing and reached the amount of 21,3 bn. CZK in 2021. We can observe a decrease in criminality in 2021 in all areas except for criminal offenses against human dignity. According to Moravčík (2022), among the main reasons for the decrease in registered crime, are Covid-19 restrictions, a change in the Criminal Code (more precisely, § 138 section 1 of the Criminal Code, which changed the lower limit for the qualification of a crime to 10 thousand CZK), optimization of statistics and better work of criminalists and police officers. Among the most common types of crime committed in Czechia in 2021 belong property crimes (77 562 acts), economic crimes (12 510 acts), and violent crimes (11 958 acts).
There are different determinants of crime, for instance, temperature (Mišák (2022)), which has a positive effect on some types of criminal activity, alcohol (David M. Fergusson and L. John Horwood (2002)), poverty, inequality, unemployment (Sachsida A. et al. (2009)), and other.
According to many studies (for example, Perez-Vincent, SM (2021)), criminality in other countries decreased during the lockdown, especially in the very first days. Therefore, I presume that the lockdown in the Czech Republic decreased crime spillovers. In compliance with Campedelli et al. (2021), there should be differences among various types of crime.

Contribution
My thesis should contribute to the following. First, it should fill the gaps in previous studies which focused mainly on
Covid-19 lockdown generally (Lydia Cheung and Philip Gunby (2022), Santiago M. Perez-Vincent et al. (2021), Yichen S. et al. (2021)). However, it should contain information about the relationship between lockdown and crime spillovers. Second, it should provide a view of the situation in the Czech Republic.
This thesis models how the lockdown affected crime spillovers in the Czech Republic. First of all, it should answer if restricted movement across districts had a negative spillover effect on crime. In addition, it should also confirm other studies (for example, Halford E. et al. (2020)) showing that a drop in property crime rate caused by lockdown will be more significant than a drop in crime rates of other types. Lastly, crime effects in Prague during the pandemic might differ from other districts due to its long-standing high crime rate and the fact that Prague is considered one district. The results could help the Police of the Czech Republic in clarifying the source of criminality in the Czech Republic and can be served as a base for further research.

Methodology
I will work with daily panel data on criminality in the Czech Republic from January 2012 to the present. These resources are freely available on the Czech police website. The database contains the ID of every registered crime incident, coordinates of specific crime scene, date and time, state ("probable perpetrator identified", "not clarified", "the act did not happen", "the act is not a crime"), and crime category. I will focus my thesis on property crime, violent crime, traffic accidents, etc. First, I will link each crime to the corresponding district based on its coordinates and give each of these districts a specific criminality rate recalculated for 100 thousand citizens. To obtain districts from the coordinates of every crime, I will use geocoding software Nominatim, which uses OpenStreetMap data. Afterward, I am planning to connect Nominatim with R studio, creating a new database with needed information. I will utilize a spatial autoregressive model (SAR) and employ it with a specific library in the R studio. This model is designed for spatial analysis, using a matrix containing information about neighboring districts. My used model should include dummy variable lockdown, which equals "1" during the lockdown and "0" otherwise. If possible, I would also add the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate of every district (or other rates connected with Covid-19) because lockdown is not the only thing that constrains peoples‘ outdoor activities (Okuhara T. et al. (2020)). Another possibility to improve the model would be adding a dummy variable for Prague, which has been considered a single district. Another key point is, that on October 1, the lowest limit for crime qualification increased to 10 thousand CZK. To make the data uniform, I will add a dummy variable that can differentiate this increase. My results will be checked by various econometric tests such as Moran I, spatial versions of Lagrange MT, Durbin Watson, etc. Finally, I will apply the model to the data and provide results.

Hypotheses:
1. During the lockdown, restricted movement across districts had a negative spillover effect on crime in the Czech Republic.
2. A drop in property crimes will be more significant than a drop in violent crimes.
3. Prague had not experienced that significant decline in crime spillovers since Prague has been considered a single district.

Outline
1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Data
4. Estimation
5. Results
6. Conclusion