Adan Silverio-Murillo, Jose Balmori de la Miyar and Lauren Hoehn-Velasco
Purpose: The evidence regarding the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on domestic violence is mixed. Studies using hotline call services identify an increase on domestic violence…
Abstract
Purpose: The evidence regarding the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on domestic violence is mixed. Studies using hotline call services identify an increase on domestic violence, while studies using police reports find a decrease. One limitation is that most of these studies came from diverse regions using different types of data sources. The purpose of this study is to use two separate data sources to study this question in the same region, and to contribute to the discussion for potential mechanisms that explain this mixed evidence.
Methodology: This study estimates the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on domestic violence in Mexico City. The authors use two separate data sources: hotline calls and official police reports. Our empirically strategy is based on a difference-in-differences methodology and an event-study design.
Findings: As a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdown, hotline calls for psychological domestic violence increase by 17%, while police reports of domestic violence decrease by 22%. To reconcile these discrepancies between hotline calls and police reports, the authors consider several potential mechanisms. The authors find suggestive evidence that the increase in psychological domestic violence is related to financial stress. Further, the results of this study indicate that the reduction in police reports is related to women facing more barriers to report their abusive intimate partners during the lockdown.
Value: These results confirm that the variation observed in the existing literature is related to the type of data being used. The mixed evidence suggests that more women suffer from psychological domestic violence as captured by hotline calls, while women encounter more barriers to report their abusive husbands to the police as captured by the official police reports.
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Scott M. Mourtgos and Ian T. Adams
Purpose – We investigate the impact of overlapping crises of COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests on one major US police department, focusing on staffing and officer proactivity…
Abstract
Purpose – We investigate the impact of overlapping crises of COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests on one major US police department, focusing on staffing and officer proactivity.
Methodology/Approach – The study investigates the impact of the two crises on operational capacity. Using Bayesian interrupted time-series analysis, the authors investigate if officer proactivity levels were adversely impacted in the short and long terms.
Findings – A statewide stay-at-home order (SAHO) was associated with a sharp decline in proactive contacts, but that effect dissipated quickly. However, the Floyd protests were associated with a sharp decline in proactivity, which persisted throughout the study period.
Originality/Value – The findings of this study contribute to ongoing research agendas that seek to understand the impact of dual, overlapping crises on US police departments and the communities they serve. The authors demonstrate a methodological approach capable of disentangling both crises’ effects on police activity levels.
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Veroni Eichelsheim, Anne Coomans, Anniek Schlette, Sjoukje van Deuren, Carlijn van Baak, Arjan Blokland, Steve van de Weijer and David Kühling
Purpose: This chapter provides an overview of the results so far within the Stay Home, Stay Safe research project in the Netherlands. The project started in the early days of the…
Abstract
Purpose: This chapter provides an overview of the results so far within the Stay Home, Stay Safe research project in the Netherlands. The project started in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and is aimed at examining short- and long-term consequences of restrictions taken to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus on domestic violence (DV). Restrictions may have resulted in social isolation and familial stress, which in turn may have led to an increase in DV. The main research question is whether, and if so which types of, DV increased during periods of COVID-19 restrictions.
Methodology/approach: This project used national data on DV before (2019) and during the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2022), from different sources (i.e., official registered reports, advices as well as file data of DV agencies). Trends in the prevalence, nature, and the role of reporters of DV before the pandemic are compared to trends during the pandemic.
Findings: Trends of DV registrations show no differences in the prevalence before and during different phases of the pandemic. The number of advice requests at the reporting agencies seem to have increased. However, this finding cannot be unambiguously subscribed to pandemic-specific circumstances, because this upward trend already consistently started in 2019. A shift was observed from professional reporters toward relatively more non-professional reporters, mostly neighbors.
Originality/Value: In contrast to previously published research, the current project uses data from multiple sources and examines information not only on trends in prevalence of DV records, but also on the type of reporter, and the nature of the violence.
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Kathy Cosgrove, Mary Suiter and Scott Wolla
The authors make the case that data literacy is a key component to critical thinking in the world today. They describe the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database and how it…
Abstract
The authors make the case that data literacy is a key component to critical thinking in the world today. They describe the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database and how it can be used. They provide a classroom lesson that uses FRED to help students gain an understanding of inflation and price stability.
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Those were the final words of Leslie Wilson's retirement address to the Aslib Annual Conference in Edinburgh four years ago almost to the day.
Mr Wilson said that his brief was to explain, as far as possible, what action Aslib itself had taken to implement the proposals made at the Royal Society's Scientific Information…
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Mr Wilson said that his brief was to explain, as far as possible, what action Aslib itself had taken to implement the proposals made at the Royal Society's Scientific Information Conference held in 1948, but he would also like to comment briefly on the opportunities for service which now confronted Aslib, largely because of the wider appreciation of information services resulting from that conference. Aslib's response to the conference's proposals had been conditioned by cramped quarters and straitened finances until the beginning of 1950 and even, in some measure, until the middle of 1951, but the following table (showing those recommendations which had been directed towards Aslib, or which Aslib had taken up, or which he thought Aslib might reasonably have taken up) would show what had been achieved and what left undone. To save space, the recommendations have been paraphrased, and progress given in note form.
The meeting took the form of an interview in which Professor Hutton answered questions put to him by a panel consisting of Miss M. Gosset, M.B.E., B.Sc., A.R.C.S., formerly…
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The meeting took the form of an interview in which Professor Hutton answered questions put to him by a panel consisting of Miss M. Gosset, M.B.E., B.Sc., A.R.C.S., formerly Librarian, AERE, Harwell; Mr B.Fullman, M.B.E., B.Sc., F.R.I.C., F.I.M., formerly Information Officer, BNFMRA; and Mr Leslie Wilson, M.A., Director of Aslib.
The Chairman, Mr. Leslie Wilson, Director of Aslib, said that at the 1954 Annual Conference in London he had suggested, as part of a talk about the future development of Aslib…
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The Chairman, Mr. Leslie Wilson, Director of Aslib, said that at the 1954 Annual Conference in London he had suggested, as part of a talk about the future development of Aslib, that research was destined to play a central part. He had been surprised that an audience, whose main raison dêtre was research in other fields, should have apparently found it difficult to accept the point of view that research was appropriate in their own field. He had been surprised because he saw research not as some mystical activity finding its origin in something beyond the ken of the ordinary person but as a purely practical step towards the improvement of the way in which they did their daily job.
Opening the conference, Mr Leslie Wilson, Director of Aslib, said that he did not often have the pleasure of welcoming to Aslib a party consisting either exclusively or…
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Opening the conference, Mr Leslie Wilson, Director of Aslib, said that he did not often have the pleasure of welcoming to Aslib a party consisting either exclusively or predominantly of public librarians; he hoped there would be more occasions in the future. Experience suggested that serious consideration of the possibility of applying computer techniques in a library or information department—the subject of the conference—usually came about in one of two ways. Sometimes it was possible to take an objective look at a library situation, analyse it and make rational decisions. Far more often the librarian was told: ‘We now have a computer; use it at all costs!’ He hoped that public libraries, as responsible public bodies, might be able more often than some types of organization to adopt the former procedure.
THE ‘need to build information management firmly into the management structure of British companies—not to mention that of central and local government’ forms the keynote of Leslie…
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THE ‘need to build information management firmly into the management structure of British companies—not to mention that of central and local government’ forms the keynote of Leslie Wilson's introduction of Aslib's 51st annual report, which revealed a useful increase in gross income to £312,000, and membership standing at 2225, of which 30% are industrial companies.