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Domestic Violence in Atlanta, Georgia
Before and During COVID-19
Dabney P. Evans, PhD, MPH,
1
Shila Rene´ Hawk, PhD,
2
and Carrie E. Ripkey, MPH
1
Abstract
Domestic violence is known to be one of the most prevalent forms of gender-based violence in emergency contexts and
anecdotal data during the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that related restrictions on movement may exacerbate such violence. As
such, the purpose of this study was to measure differences in domestic violence incident reports from police data in Atlanta,
Georgia, before and during COVID-19. Thirty weeks of crime data were collected from the Atlanta Police Department (APD) in
an effort to compare Part I offense trends 2018–2020. Compared with weeks 1–31 of 2018 and 2019, there was a growth in Part
I domestic crimes during 2020 as reported to the APD. In addition, trendlines show that 2020 domestic crimes were occurring at
a relatively similar pace as the counts observed in previous years leading up to the pandemic. A spike in domestic crimes was
recorded after city and statewide shelter-in-place orders. The rise of cumulative counts of domestic crimes during the COVID-
19 period of 2020 compared with the previous 2 years suggests increased occurrence of domestic violence. The co-occurring
pandemics of COVID-19 and domestic violence come amidst a period of racial justice reckoning in the United States; both have
a disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. As the country grapples with how to deal with health and
safety concerns related to the pandemic, and the unacceptable harms being perpetrated by police, a public health approach is
strongly warranted to address both universal health care and violence prevention.
Keywords: domestic violence, intimate partner violence, COVID, violence against women, police, crime
Introduction
Intimate partner violence (IPV), including physical,
sexual, and psychological abuse by a past or current
intimate partner [World Health Organization (WHO)
2012], is a ‘‘shadow pandemic’’ that has both preceded
and paralleled the global COVID-19 pandemic (Mlambo-
Ngcuka 2020; Moreira and Pinto de Costa 2020). One of
the most pervasive human rights violations in the world,
before COVID-19, one in three women and girls were
victimized by an abusive partner during their lifetime
(Garcı´a-Moreno et al. 2013).
IPV is known to be one of the most prevalent forms of
gender-based violence in emergency contexts (Stark and Ager
2011); increases in violence, including IPV are a manifesta-
tion of existing gender inequities exacerbated by the cascading
impacts of emergencies (John et al. 2020). During the 2014–
2016 Ebola Virus Disease epidemic in West Africa—which
included strict quarantine measures—widespread increases in
IPV were observed (Onyango et al. 2019). Studies of the
impact of Hurricane Katrina found increased rates of IPV after
the natural disaster; rates of violence against women rose from
4.6 cases per 100,000 per day to >16 cases per 100,000 per
day among those displaced by the storm (Bell and Folkerth
2016). Based on both existing literature and emerging evi-
dence, there is reason to believe that COVID-19 will follow
this pattern of increased violence.
Data from earlier emergencies and anecdotal data during
the pandemic suggest that COVID-19-related restrictions on
movement may exacerbate IPV. Early in the pandemic, coun-
tries hard hit by COVID-19 began raising the alarm bell about
the impacts of the disease on IPV occurrence. France saw a
36% increase in the number of reported IPV cases (Godin 2020;
Strianese 2020). Police in China reported that 90% of the
causes of recent IPV cases could be attributed to the pandemic
(Wanqing 2020). An online survey of 15,000 Australian women
found that 65.4% of women who experienced IPV during the
pandemic experienced violence for the first time, or observed an
1
Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
2
Applied Research Services, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
ªDabney P. Evans et al. 2020; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits any noncommercial use, dis-
tribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are cited.
VIOLENCE AND GENDER
Volume 00, Number 00, 2020
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/vio.2020.0061
1
escalation in the intensity or frequency of violence relative to
earlier experiences, supporting the notion of emergencies ex-
acerbating underlying vulnerabilities and inequities (Boxall
et al. 2020). Increased economic strain and diminished health
care capacity to support survivors are among the potential rea-
sons for such dramatic effects.
Before COVID-19, nearly 20 people every minute in
the United States were physically abused by an intimate
partner (Black et al. 2011). Early concerns about increases
in IPV during the pandemic have prompted mental health
organizations to issue statements outlining the potential
impacts of COVID-19 on IPV [Abramson 2020; Sub-
stance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) 2020]. These concerns have proven to be well
founded as early reporting indicated significant increases
in calls to police and domestic violence hotlines (Bosman
2020; Crombie 2020).
In Georgia—even before the onset of shelter-in-place
regulations—there was a 79% increase in domestic violence
cases in comparison with the previous year, suggesting that
individuals were experiencing significant impacts early in
the outbreak (Burns 2020). Georgia is notable because it
was the first US state to ‘‘re-open’’ (Jarvie 2020); although
the state did not experience a COVID-19 case spike initially
by August 2020 it was among a number of states where
both COVID-19 cases and deaths were increasing—and at
numbers significantly higher than they had been during
movement restrictions (New York Times 2020).
As concerns about the ‘‘shadow pandemic’’ mount and as
COVID-19 cases continue, the need for additional data on
the impacts of COVID-19 on IPV are apparent (Emezue
2020; UN Women 2020). In the absence of real-time IPV-
related data, domestic crime data serve as the best available
proxy measure. The purpose of this study was to measure
differences in domestic violence incident reports from po-
lice data in Atlanta, Georgia, before and during COVID-19.
Materials and Methods
Setting
Before the pandemic Georgia ranked 10th in the nation
for the rate at which women were killed by men; the
state’s certified domestic violence agencies answered
52,282 crisis calls in 2019; yet, over 4,700 women and
their children were turned away from shelters owing to
lack of space demonstrating the significant health need for
Georgians even before COVID-19 [Georgia Commission
on Family Violence (GCFV) 2020; Violence Policy
Center (VPC) 2019].
Georgia instituted a mandatory shelter–in-place order one
month after the first known COVID-19 case in the state (Fig. 1).
The statewide shelter in place was lifted on May 1, 2020 despite
continuing infections, although high-risk individuals were urged
to continue sheltering in place (Raymond 2020). In addition to
the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread civil unrest and protests
followed the murder of George Floyd including several high-
profile events in Atlanta in late May and early June (Fausset and
Levenson 2020; Macaya and Hayes 2020). The murder of
Rayshard Brooks by an Atlanta Police officer shortly thereafter
escalated tensions between civil society and municipal authori-
ties (Wall Street Journal 2020).
Data source
The Atlanta Police Department (APD) is one of the few
that provide open source crime data that are regularly
FIG. 1. Timeline of COVID-19 and racial unrest in Georgia.
2 EVANS ET AL.
updated. Part I offense data are released for public use based
on all incidents stored in the APD electronic Integrated
Compliance Information System (ICIS) Case Management
and available through the APD Open Data portal. The APD
Open Data portal can be queried by current day or the prior
day for an HTML list of incidents. Historical data from 2009
to 2019 can also be downloaded as a comma delimited
(.csv) file. The APD feeds these data into the LexisNexis
Community Crime Map for the public to filter and plot with
basic analytical tools. Preliminary testing of crime patterns
during the pandemic using the mapping dashboard sug-
gested further analysis were warranted.
Through a separate portal, select year-to-date 2020 incident-
level data can be extracted, lagging a maximum of 2 weeks
from the current date. These data are based on APD crime
incidents and are posted by the APD Weekly Crime Reports.
PDFs with management stats include aggregate totals by week
on common crimes of concern and arrests. None of the afore-
mentioned formats, however, include domestic crime counts.
Measures
Part I crime types are defined by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) (U.S.
Department of Justice, n.d.). If multiple crimes occur during
the same event, the incident is captured using the ‘‘hierarchy
rule,’’ which ranks Part I crimes from most to least serious
as follows: homicide, manslaughter, rape, robbery, assault,
burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson (U.S.
Department of Justice 2011). APD offense definitions fol-
low the standards set by the FBI with the exception of arson,
which is excluded from the APD data as Part I offense. The
incident-level data for Atlanta include only the most serious
offense occurring during the episode (i.e., APD offense id#).
This differs from the FBI’s UCR program data, which are
recorded by victim allowing for multiple crimes to be in-
cluded within a single report.
Domestic crimes are as subset of Part I crimes—most
often appearing as a subcategory of assault but also as a
subset of other serious crimes such as homicide. Domestic
crimes can include nonpartner relationships, such as family
violence and child abuse. Therefore, our measure is broader
than IPV, but inclusive of it. Because crime data routinely
uses the term domestic crimes, we use the term domestic
violence instead of the term IPV when making reference to
the data used here and reserve use of the term IPV for
references to the larger literature on this topic.
Study ethics
The study was reviewed by the Emory University Institu-
tional Review Board and deemed exempt from review based
on the nature of the secondary analysis of de-identified data.
Data collection and management
Crime data were collected on August 10, 2020 from the
APD Open Data Portal historical repository to capture
2018–2019 incidents; the Crime Data Downloads portal was
queried to gather 2020 year-to-date incidents [Atlanta Police
Department (APD) 2020]. The historical dataset and 2020
data can be queried by month, year, and crime type among
other attributes, all of which were extracted. The raw data
files were imported to SPSS, and then merged into an
original incident-level dataset. Measures for analyses were
coded into week-level measures by study year, 2018–2020.
Six cumulative crime counts were calculated summing Part I
and domestic crimes reported within the same 7 days for
each year (i.e., week total plus all prior week totals). Two
measures of the 2020 percent change in Part I and domestic
crimes were computed by taking the difference in the most
recent incident counts from the year before, then using the
prior year total as the denominator or expected baseline (i.e.,
2020 # -2019 #/2019 #). Three per capita crime rate mea-
sures were set to equal the cumulative count multiplied per
standard unit of residents over the estimated yearly population
(e.g., 2020 rate =weekly aggregate # ·100,000/2020 popula-
tion). Population estimates were retrieved from the United
States Census Bureau. Finally, the complete dataset was ex-
ported to Microsoft Excel software for data visualization in
analyses.
Data analysis
Crime data were examined for changes in Atlanta do-
mestic crimes before and during the pandemic. First, we
questioned whether domestic crimes had increased in 2020
compared with prior years and if so, whether the timing
aligned with the issuance of city and/or state-level shelter-
in-place orders. Graphing the cumulative counts allowed us
to model yearly trendlines through August 1, 2020 and as-
sess the sharpness of their divergence across years. Second,
we questioned how much domestic crimes had changed
from the year prior and if the observed change was simply
reflective of the general crime trends in the city. A layer bar
chart was generated using percent change computations for
all Part I and domestic crimes to explore the variance in the
subset of incidents within the broader crime context. Third,
we questioned if the observed changes in domestic crime
patterns were reflective of population changes over time.
We explored this by tabulating the domestic crime counts
normalized to the city population as a rate per 100,000
residents and crosswalking the rows. These analyses per-
mitted us to examine the fluctuations and intensity of do-
mestic crimes while accounting for population size across
years—an apples-to-apples comparison.
Results
Compared with weeks 1–31 of 2018 and 2019 there has
been a growth in Part I domestic crimes during 2020 as
reported to the APD (Fig. 2). By week 31 of 2020, a total of
376 domestic incidents had been reported. Leading up to the
pandemic the trendlines show that 2020 domestic crimes
were occurring at a relatively similar pace as the counts
observed in previous years, even overlapping with 2019.
Then, a spike in domestic crimes was recorded following
city and statewide shelter-in-place order (weeks 12–13). The
uptick gained in intensity each passing week until it leveled
off during the same time that the statewide shelter-in-place
order was lifted in week 18. Domestic crimes began rising
again in weeks 24–28, the period corresponding with the
fallout from the murder of Rayshard Brooks and a spike in
COVID-19 cases pulling the 2020 domestic crimes line
even further from earlier years.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN ATLANTA DURING COVID-19 3
To understand the extent of the domestic crimes increase
and see if it mirrored broader crime trends, we examined the
percent change in crimes across the Part I total relative to
domestic crimes (Fig. 2). The 2019–2020 percent change for
domestic crimes was larger, yet in the same direction as all
Part I offenses until week 14 when the statewide shelter in
place was in effect.
In the subsequent weeks, domestic crimes increased by
11%, whereas Part I offenses decreased by 20%—a 31%
difference (Fig. 3). It is notable that some of the highest
domestic crime percent changes took place during the time
that city and statewide shelter-in-place orders were in effect,
whereas the largest decreases in Part I offenses align with
the protests after George Floyd’s death (Table 1).
Because population increases might affect domestic crimes
counts, rates were calculated to validate yearly comparison
results and report the effect size. Table 1 displays the Part I
domestic crimes rates per 100,000 residents by year. It is
estimated that the Atlanta population increased by more than
25,000 people between 2018 and 2020. After controlling for
that difference, our results show that domestic crimes per
capita have been rising in 2020 compared with previous years.
In week 31, there were nearly 72 domestic crimes per 100,000
residents: over a 5-unit increase from the same weeks in 2018
and 2019.
Discussion
COVID-19 is a ‘‘once in a century pandemic’’ that has
posed unprecedented challenges to health and economic
systems; globally greater than 243 million women and girls
are simultaneously at risk of increasing violence as part of the
‘‘shadow pandemic’’ (Gates 2020). Recognizing the potential
for increased IPV risk as a result of the pandemic and its
associated movement restrictions, this study sought to explore
differences in domestic crime incidents reported to the police
in Atlanta, Georgia before and during COVID-19.
We found that cumulative counts of domestic crimes
were higher during the COVID-19 period of 2020 than in
the preceeding two years suggesting increased occurrence
of domestic violence, especially during shelter-in-place
orders. This is consistent with a reported 42% increase in
domestic violence calls, only 2% of which were repeat
offenses suggesting increased first-time violence during
the COVID-19 period (Braverman 2020). People in vio-
lent relationships may experience difficulty calling for
help and they may be unsure if police will report to be able
to help them given COVID-19. These call data suggest
that at least some proportion of people experiencing vio-
lence are able to reach out to police; our data on increased
incident reports suggest that police are reporting to assist
during domestic incidents.
We observed that overall Part I offenses substantially
decreased during the COVID-19 period relative to the
previous year. This finding is in contrast to National
Crime Victimization Survey data from 2015 to 2018,
which indicated a 28% increase in violent victimizations
(Morgan and Oudekerk 2019). As a small silver lining to
the tremendous harms of the pandemic itself, our findings
suggest that during the first few months of the COVID-19
pandemic Part I offenses slowed indicating a general de-
crease in crime in Atlanta, Georgia, even during periods of
FIG. 2. Growth in Atlanta Po-
lice Department reported Part I
domestic crimes through August 1
by year.
4 EVANS ET AL.
FIG. 3. Year-to-date Part I offenses: 2020–2019 percent change total versus domestic crimes through July 25, 2020.
5
civil unrest; this is in contrast to media portrayal of civil
protests during this period being violent or characterized
by criminal activity.
However, during the same time period domestic crimes
increased substantially, corroborating the ‘‘shadow pan-
demic’’ hypothesis and prior reports. People experiencing
violence in their relationships during emergencies must
weigh the risks of leaving during an uncertain time or
staying and facing potential harm at the hands of a partner.
The time during and shortly after a survivor leaves a violent
relationship is known to be among the most dangerous and
is a known femicide risk factor (Campbell et al. 2003).
These domestic incident data also suggest an overall in-
crease in IPV. Under normal circumstances: poverty, un-
employment, economic stress, and social isolation are all
risk factors for violence perpetration (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention 2019; Jewkes et al. 2013). Many of
these factors worsen in the contexts of natural disasters and
emergencies, including notable increases in financial strain
(UN Women 2020). Unemployment claims in Georgia have
surged 400% since the onset of the pandemic, likely indi-
cating co-occurring financial stress for many isolated at
home (Hagemann and Booker 2020; Kanell 2020). Al-
though employment status was not a variable in our data, the
high unemployment rates in Georgia as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic may be contributing to higher incident
reports and IPV occurrence. Addressing unemployment and
financial hardship at the family level through the provision
of direct economic assistance, unemployment benefits, and
the reduction of housing and food insecurity should be a
priority endeavor that would benefit those facing harms as a
result of COVID-19 and those at risk of experiencing IPV.
In addition, current pandemic response efforts ought to
consider ways to specifically direct resources to domestic
violence prevention and response programming—including
as follow-up to Part I offenses—and in emergency rooms
where those experiencing injury as a result of domestic
crimes are likely to receive care; future emergency and
preparedness plans should similarly include scaled-up IPV
response given what is now known about the increased
likelihood of increases in IPV during public health emer-
gencies and natural disasters.
At the same time COVID-19 has been ravaging the
United States, the country has experienced a racial justice
reckoning (Elving 2020). As calls to defund the police
mount, policy makers and communities must grapple with
how to simultaneously address the health and safety con-
cerns related to the pandemic—including potential increases
in IPV—and the unacceptable harms being perpetrated by
police against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
(BIPOC) [Black Lives Matter (BLM) 2020; Sinyangwe and
McKesson 2020]. A public health approach is warranted to
address both universal health care and violence prevention;
police divestment and community investment strategies
Table 1. Atlanta Police Reported Part I Domestic Crime Rate per 100,000 Residents
Week No. Start date End date
2020 Rate
(population
estimated 523,738)
2019 Rate
(population
estimated. 506,811)
2018 Rate
(population
estimated 498,044)
2 January 5 January 11 4.201 2.170 3.213
3 January 12 January 18 5.346 4.538 5.421
4 January 19 January 25 6.683 5.919 8.031
5 January 26 February 1 8.974 6.314 9.838
6 February 2 February 8 10.310 8.682 12.248
7 February 9 February 15 13.556 11.641 13.653
8 February 16 February 22 15.848 13.220 16.464
9 February 23 February 29 17.184 15.785 18.874
10 March 1 March 7 19.094 16.377 20.079
11 March 8 March 14 21.576 18.350 22.689
12 March 15 March 21 23.485 19.534 24.697
13 March 22 March 28 26.731 22.099 26.504
14 March 29 April 4 27.686 24.269 28.512
15 April 5 April 11 28.640 27.032 30.720
16 April 12 April 18 34.177 28.018 32.527
17 April 19 April 25 37.041 29.794 35.740
18 April 26 May 2 38.569 32.557 37.748
19 May 3 May 9 40.669 35.122 40.358
20 May 10 May 16 43.533 38.081 41.563
21 May 17 May 23 45.061 39.462 43.972
22 May 24 May 30 48.116 42.028 45.578
23 May 31 June 6 50.598 43.409 47.787
24 June 7 June 13 53.080 45.974 50.598
25 June 14 June 20 57.281 48.736 53.007
26 June 21 June 27 59.572 53.274 55.417
27 June 28 July 4 62.627 55.642 58.629
28 July 5 July 11 65.300 59.391 60.637
29 July 12 July 18 66.636 61.956 63.448
30 July 19 July 25 69.882 63.929 64.854
31 July 26 August 1 71.792 76.557 66.661
6 EVANS ET AL.
complement a public health approach and center BIPOC
who are disproportionately impacted by both COVID-19
and IPV [Godoy and Wood 2020; Petrosky et al. 2017; The
Movement for Black Lives ( M4BL) 2020].
Limitations
We used readily available crime data to examine differ-
ences in Part I offenses including domestic offenses during the
COVID-19 period. Our data come from one city, thus may not
be generalizable; however, they do provide evidence into what
is happening within Atlanta, Georgia, which policy makers
can utilize. Although these data are timely and may serve as a
rapidly available proxy, they are not equivalent to standard
health measures such as IPV incidence. Because domestic
crimes can include nonpartner relationships such as family
violence, this measure is broader than IPV although inclusive
of it; therefore, our data cannot be used as a direct measure of
IPV. However, previous research suggests around half of vi-
olent victimizations go unreported to the police ( Morgan and
Kena 2018). Therefore, it is likely that the data on domestic
crime presented here are still an underestimation of IPV. The
absence of domestic crimes during Part II incidents within our
data is another limitation, although one that underscores the
idea that our data are reflective of an underestimation. Given
that health data routinely lag years behind—and given the
urgency of the potential harms of the pandemic—we believe
use of police data are appropriate even given their limitations.
Conclusions
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, future research
exploring differences in IPV-related injuries in health care
settings and IPV support services demand and utilization
during the COVID-19 pandemic would complement the data
presented, especially because anecdotal reports suggest a
marked increase in demand for services (Fox 5 Atlanta 2020;
Oppenheimer and Rayam 2020). Additional analysis ac-
counting for pandemic-related movement restrictions would
also provide nuance into the effects of these restrictions on
IPV occurrence, allowing for more appropriate planning by
policy makers as they work to balance protection of public
health with limitations on free movement during the COVID-
19 pandemic and in other future public health emergencies.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the APD for the provision of timely open
source crime data. The authors are also grateful to the Injury
Prevention Research Center at Emory University for facili-
tating the introduction of the authors and this collaboration.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
Funding Information
No funding was received in support of this work.
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Address correspondence to:
Dabney P. Evans, PhD, MPH
Hubert Department of Global Health
Rollins School of Public Health
Emory University
1518 Clifton Road, NE, Mailstop 1518-002-7BB
Atlanta, GA 30322
USA
E-mail: dabney.evans@emory.edu
8 EVANS ET AL.
