The immediate and long-term effects of COVID-19 stay-at-home orders on domestic violence calls for service across six U.S. jurisdictions

We assessed immediate and long-term trends in calls for police service regarding domestic violence following COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Using open data from the Police Data Initiative, we performed interrupted time-series analyses of weekly calls for service for domestic violence in New Orleans (LA), Cincinnati (OH), Seattle (WA), Salt Lake City (UT), Montgomery County (MD), and Phoenix (AZ). Results indicate that five of the six jurisdictions experienced an immediate, significant spike in domestic violence calls for service (Cincinnati being the lone exception). As stay-at-home orders were lifted throughout the remainder of 2020, domestic violence calls for service declined in every jurisdiction but Salt Lake City. These results illustrate (1) the importance of studying the localized effects of COVID-19 on criminal justice issues, (2) the need for more agencies to publish open data in a timely fashion, and (3) the caution researchers and the public must use when working with calls for service data, which are not uniform across agencies and require careful cleaning prior to analysis.