Pandemic court closures could be driving high crime rates in U.S.: NPR

NEW YORK, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Court closures took place in many U.S. cities due to the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020, which played a role in the rise of disorder and violence, reported the National Public Radio (NPR) on Sunday.

Thereafter, some cities did whatever they could to get things back open and running as normally as possible, and in result, things went for the better as they expected, said the report.

Meanwhile, some other cities were much slower in resuming normal court operations, and it ended up with just incredible backlog of cases, according to the report.

These differences bear out the truth that "it's not the severity of punishment that is the critical factor. It's the certainty of being caught. It's the certainty of some consequence," said the report.

"The idea of swift and certain consequences has really come to be kind of a consensus in the field of criminology," it added.