Impact of COVID-19 on Selected Criminal Activities in Dhaka, Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on the historical criminal trend around the world. This study explores the early impact of COVID-19 lockdown on selected crimes in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Based on open data of the total number of arrests reported by Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), an uninterrupted historical time series analysis is applied to evaluate the immediate impact during and after the official stay-at-home order due to COVID-19. Auto-regressive moving average (ARIMA) modeling technique was used to compute 6-month-ahead forecasts of the expected frequency of the total number of arrests for illegal arms dealing, vehicle theft, and narcotics trafficking in the absence of the pandemic. These forecasts were compared with the observed data from April 2020 to September 2020. The results suggest that the observed numbers of total arrests for vehicle thefts and illegal arms dealing are not significantly different from their predicted values. However, the observed frequency of the total number of arrests for illegal drug trafficking shows a steep upward trend, which is 75% more than that of the expected frequencies. Estimated results are used to recognize scopes and suggestions for future research on the relationship between crimes and the pandemic.