The purpose of this research was to examine the effect of COVID-19 on four outcomes including calls for service for domestic violence, calls for service for assaults, arrests for domestic violence, and arrests for assaults in Burlington, Vermont. The data for each outcome collected over the time periods January 2012 through May 2021 were obtained from the Burlington Police Department website and then a monthly time-series data set were created. The analyses including an independent samples t-test, a Poisson regression test, and a monthly interrupted time-series analyses (ITSA) were employed to test the effects of COVID-19 on the previously mentioned outcomes. The results of the ITSA showed that in the first month following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic violence calls statistically significantly increased, but no statistically significant change was observed in domestic violence arrests, while assault calls and assault arrests statistically significantly decreased. In addition, during COVID-19, there was a statistically significant decreasing trend in domestic violence calls and domestic violence arrests, while there was no statistically significant change in the trends of assault calls and assault arrests. The results suggest that COVID-19 had an immediate as well as a persistent effect on the numbers of domestic violence and assaults. The results and limitations of this study were also discussed.

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This article addresses controversy over gender differences in risk and protective factors for late-adolescence assaults. A secondary analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort considered 2,552 youth aged 12 or 13 in the first survey wave. Comparison of girls and boys revealed, as expected, boys had higher levels of risk factors: early delinquency, gang involvement, and hopelessness. Girls were higher in the protective factors, parental monitoring, and school and religious ties; but boys were higher in parental support and work involvement. Negative binomial regression showed that gang exposure and hopelessness explained assaults, regardless of gender. For girls, early runaway behavior and work activity were positively, and parental monitoring was negatively, related to assaults. Unexpectedly, boys with high parental support were more assaultive than others. Prevention requires addressing negative contexts for all youth, but for girls, programs also must address conditions promoting their running away.

Based on resilience and feminist criminological theories, several individual, family, and community characteristics were hypothesized to predict lateadolescent delinquency for girls varying in early-adolescent risk. Girls aged 12 and 13 were interviewed each year as part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Predictors of late-adolescent delinquency were compared for girls in and below the top 10% in self-reported early-adolescent delinquency. Girls who were higher in delinquency in early adolescence were resilient by 2002 if they had no incarcerated family members and high parental monitoring. Girls with little or no early delinquency were at risk for illegal activity by age 17 primarily due to contextual adversities, low hope for the future, poverty status, and minority racial status. Persistently delinquent girls require programming to address multiple risk and protective factors over an extended time. To prevent delinquency beginning later in adolescence, girls need safe community and school contexts.