Crime<\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/nav>\n During COVID, disadvantaged inner-city neighbourhoods were harder hit by violent crimes, including assault and robbery. <\/p>\nA Vancouver police officer walks in the 300-block Columbia Street on the Downtown Eastside on Nov. 25, 2021.<\/span> Photo by Mike Bell<\/span> \/PNG<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n Crime statistics across Vancouver barely changed in the first year of COVID-19 but a closer look at individual areas show disadvantaged inner-city neighbourhoods were harder hit by violent crimes during the pandemic, including assault and robbery.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n Meantime, violent crimes, arsons and weapons-related offences, dropped in wealthier neighbourhoods, like Kitsilano, Oakridge and Kerrisdale, but these areas were harder hit by property crimes, such theft, vehicle theft and vehicle break-ins.<\/p>\n
The results are reported in a new study on the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on neighbourhood level crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows there is an increase in violence and of burglary in and around the core areas of this city,\u201d including downtown, Strathcona and Mt. Pleasant, said co-author Martin Andresen, a SFU criminology professor.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring COVID, crime increased in the poorer areas of the city,\u201d he said. The pandemic had a greater \u201cimpact on the marginalized and vulnerable populations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n He and co-author, Tarah Hodgkinson, an assistant criminology professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, were testing their theory that crime would be affected by the \u201cnatural experiment\u201d of COVID-related restrictions. They predicted that socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods would be harder hit by crime.<\/p>\n
They compared police crime statistics for 10 crime types against the social and cultural makeup of Vancouver\u2019s 22 official neighbourhoods based on socio-economic factors in Statistics Canada census data.<\/p>\n
That included income levels, post-secondary education, average rents, government assistance, residential turnover, the percentages of lone-parent households, immigrants and Aboriginal populations, housing prices, unemployment rates, housing under major repair and new housing.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n The authors explained the inclusion of the percentage of Indigenous and immigrant people to define a neighbourhood\u2019s socio-economic status. \u201cIt\u2019s critical to recognize that this \u2026 is representative of the well-documented high levels of (child) poverty and structural\/institutional inequalities for Indigenous populations.\u201d And they cited an earlier study that found \u201cimmigrant criminal activity is a product of the neighbourhoods in which they live.\u201d<\/p>\n A new study led by criminology professor Martin Andresen found COVID treated neighbourhoods unequally when it came to crime.<\/span> Photo by Martin Andresen\/Submitted<\/span> \/jpg<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe study compared crime between March 2020 and February 2021 against the previous three years by neighbourhood and found only four of the 10 crime types had a statistically significant change citywide \u2014 assaults, vehicle theft, vehicle break-ins and weapons offences.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\nArticle content<\/h2>\n But a closer look at all crime categories by areas showed \u201cneighbourhoods in Vancouver with lower socio-economic status experience statistically significant increases in crime, whereas higher socio-economic neighbourhoods experience statistically significant decreases in crime,\u201d the study said.<\/p>\n
And while theft, vehicle theft and vehicle break-ins were down in disadvantaged areas, they were up in wealthier ones, \u201can expected finding considering that most businesses were shuttered and workday traffic and parking would be essentially eliminated in those (central) areas during the COVID-19 lockdown,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the pandemic, theft from vehicles increased in higher socio-economic status neighbourhoods\u201d because more people were working and parking their cars at home, the authors said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n