Coronavirus ‘silver lining’: Crime and crashes plummet across Pa.

• Christine Vendel/PennLive
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  New to PA, covering Harrisburg for PennLive, former reporter for The KC Star, who writes while standing because prolonged sitting is as harmful as smoking

Total reported crime across Pennsylvania plummeted 65 percent in the last half of March amid the coronavirus shutdowns, according to state police statistics.

The downward crime trend, which is playing out across much of the country, is a rare bit of good news from the global pandemic.

“Everybody is in survival mode,” said Harrisburg Police Commissioner Thomas Carter. “When I’m driving or walking around the city now, the streets are bare. So far, people are listening and trying to do what they should be doing: staying home.”

State police recorded 3,417 criminal offenses between Feb. 29 and March 13, when the governor announced a statewide school closure. The next two weeks, criminal offenses fell sharply to 1,182.

The number of car crashes, arrests and DUI arrests also each dropped by more than half across the state, according to figures from March 14 to March 27.

State police logged 2,259 car crashes in the two weeks prior to March 13 but just 1,092 in the two weeks that followed. That means occupants of more than 1,100 vehicles could have been hurt but weren’t; those vehicles could have been damaged but weren’t.

The personal and monetary cost of all the crashes and crimes averted is significant and represents a “silver lining to this dark cloud,” said Professor David Harris, who studies police behavior, law enforcement and more at the University of Pittsburgh.

People are still committing some crimes, Harris said, but there are fewer because there is less opportunity. With most businesses closed, he said, it’s understandable that armed robberies would dry up. With fewer people on the streets: not many people to rob either. With bars closed, no bar fights break out. Also, with everyone at home watching their property and blocks: burglaries may not be an option.

While crimes and crashes have dropped, calls for service, however, increased 22 percent for state police in the end of March. Those calls include self-initiated police work such as checking on a closed schools, businesses and liquor establishments, said Ryan Tarkowski, Pennsylvania State Police communications director.

It’s likely some of the increased duties of state police because of the coronavirus shutdowns contributed to the increase, he said. Police were tasked to ensure malls and liquor establishments had closed and also are focused on checking on closed businesses to prevent burglaries and vandalism.

Calls for emergency service in Dauphin County have slowed to nearly half the average level and even 911 calls had declined by 36 percent on March 29, according to statistics provided by county officials.

In Harrisburg, calls for police service dropped by 45 percent in the last half of March compared to the same time frame in 2019. The city logged 1,079 calls for service in the last half of March, compared to 1,970 calls for service during the same dates last year.

Burglaries, assaults and drug incidents have declined in March, said police Sgt. Kyle Gautsch. But police are getting slightly more reports of shootings, drug overdoses and domestic violence, he said.

Less traffic is the most noticeable thing about working in the city during a daytime shift right now, said Harrisburg police Cpl. Teresa Covey. There are fewer crashes and complaints, she said. With no commuters or bustle downtown, Covey said the homeless population stand out more.

“Before they blended in with all the other people outside,” she said. ”Now they are very visible.”

The novel coronavirus has impacted more than just crime statistics. It’s affected nearly everything about police work, from the kind of calls officers respond to in-person to the kind of crimes worth locking someone up in jail.

Police are handling non-active scenes and low-level crimes by phone and exercising great discretion in who gets arrested, as each person added to the back of a police vehicle or jail adds another layer of virus risk.

Officers must weigh the risks for every violation, said Carlisle Police Cpl. Jeffrey Kurtz.

“It’s difficult for some of the younger officers who want to be more aggressive,” Kurtz said. “We can’t be as proactive as we would like, so we’re sitting in areas hoping our presence will get people to slow down and perhaps discourage people from other illegal acts.”

But if police can opt to arrest fewer people now, is that something they could continue to do, even after the major virus risk passes, considering how deleterious it is to spend time behind bars? Harris said a jail stint of just a few days can be life-altering for people on the margins who could lose their homes or cars. Many poor defendants get stuck in jail longer if they can’t afford bail.

“We should hope we’re able to learn more about this,” Harris said. “Could we have a system that could arrest far fewer people without increasing the danger to public safety?”

Harris said the current situation could show that “we can handle these things without arresting as many people. One can hope that’s one of the longer-term consequences out of this.”

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