The policy lessons learned from the criminal justice system response to COVID‐19

• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Author: Alex R. Piquero
• Date: 01 August 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12562

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133. 12562

INVITED POLICY ESSAY

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON CRIME AND JUSTICE

The policy lessons learned from the criminal

justice system response to COVID-19

Alex R. Piquero1,2

1Department of Sociology & Criminology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida

2Criminology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Correspondence

AlexR. Piquero, Department of Sociology & Criminology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA.

Email:axp1954@miami.edu

KEYWORDS

COVID19, criminal justice system, policy

1 INTRODUCTION

The health crisis associated with COVID-19, its lockdowns, and reopenings came in the midst

of America’s reckoning with racial and social justice amid the George Floyd murder. These two

events spotlighted the racial and ethnic disparities contained in the criminal justice and health

systems (Binswanger et al., 2012; Novisky et al., 2021; Nowotny et al., 2021), which served to

inflame many social ills and conflicts (that have been there for quite some time) that hinder how

we go about securing public health and public safety.In this regard, the country’s early inability to

respond quickly and effectively to the public health (and simultaneously) racial and social justice

crises originates from the same factors that have long prevented the country from dealing with

public safety in a serious, fair, and transparent manner (e.g., racialand ethnic bias, class conflict,

tribalism, materialism, etc.). Yet, the coupling of these two crises could also be a springboard for

inspiring both a reimagining and a reshaping of the justice system to move toward being fairer

and more just. In this regard, the novel coronavirus pandemic, its subsequent lockdowns and

reopenings and the recent Delta-based resurgence have provided criminologists with a unique

opportunity to study its effects on crime and policy responses.

Since the onset of the novel coronavirus, criminologists have researched how the virus and

its policy responses have affected crime and criminal justice, with the most significant find-

ings indicating: (1) a steady increase in specific forms of violence, including primarily homi-

cides/community gun violence (Rosenfeld & Lopez, 2021) and domestic violence (Piquero et al.,

2021); (2) reductions or stability in virtually all property crimes, but the acceleration of certain

types of offending, such as fraud and cybercrime, due in large part to increased reliance on the

internet and related platforms (Kennedy et al., 2021;Payne,2020); (3) the emergence of new crime

types, such as public health violations for breaking COVID-19 safety protocols (Leal et al., 2021);

(4) a reduction in prison and jail populations—especially in the first 6–9 months of the pandemic;

Criminology & Public Policy. 2021;20:385–399. © 2021 American Society of Criminology 385wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp