Widespread looting and chaos are the sort of scenes we’d expect to see in the wake of major disasters, but recent Israeli research has determined that communities impacted by natural disasters actually experience a decrease in crime.
The study, conducted by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, examined data from 10,000 natural disasters of differing scopes that struck the United States from 2004 to 2015 and resulted in the deaths of 8,300 people and damage worth more than $100 billion.
They compared the data between communities that were directly affected with that of communities that had been spared direct impact.
They found that while natural disasters were followed by reductions in crime levels in the communities that were directly affected, their neighboring, unaffected areas often reported an uptick in crime.