Safer or Endangered at Home?: An Examination of Neighborhood Effects on Family Violence Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Safer-at-Home Order

Abstract

Research has begun to document the impact of COVID-19, and corresponding restrictions associated with the pandemic, to several unintended consequences including increased rates of family violence. Given these findings, there have been calls for research to understand predictors of family violence, and how such predictors may shift during differing periods of the pandemic. Rooted in the family stress model and social disorganization theory, this study used call for service data from two police departments located in the Midwest of the United States, to examine whether the relationship between sociostructural indices on the number of family violence incidents varied in the times before, during, and after COVID-19 Safer-at-Home orders. Based on a series of negative binomial regression models, results show that the association between neighborhood (i.e., Census block group) concentrated poverty, the percentage of the population between 15 and 24 years of age, and the percentage of the population that identify as male on family violence was amplified during and/or after the adoption of the Safer-at-Home order. Results also indicated that the Safer-at-Home order eradicated the once significant effect of residential mobility and family violence incidents. Lastly, although neighborhoods located within the more populous and metropolitan city experienced fewer family violence incidents, compared to the mixed rural-suburban city, the gap in the number of incidents per neighborhood decreased in the times following the enactment of the Safer-at-Home order. Based on these findings, proactive and reactive policies regarding resource dissemination and increasing neighboring activities are discussed.