Impact of Lockdown Policy During COVID-19 Pandemic on Intimate Partner Violence in Los Angeles

Abstract

Covid-19 has impacted people’s lives significantly, and it might continue to impact them until people find a way to deal with it indefinitely. In the early stage of the pandemic, when there was no vaccine and COVID-19 had an outbreak, the government decided to implement a lockdown policy to stop the spread. Several questions have arisen, whether lockdown affects intimate partner violence and how it will change after lockdown. This study examined intimate partner violence experienced by people during the COVID-19 lockdowns in Los Angeles. By selecting intimate partner violence data from 2019 to 2022 from Los Angeles crime dataset and using Difference-in-Difference method compare the intimate partner crime counts during different period, the following result is generated. The study shows that intimate partner violence will drop significantly at the beginning of the lockdown and increase as lockdown time increases. Intimate partner violence also increases when the lockdown is over. This study could be used for future policy making and preventing intimate partner violence in case another pandemic outbreak requires lockdown.