arXiv subjects

Alberto Aziani

Publications and source records attributed to Alberto Aziani.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Conspiracy to Commit: Information Pollution, Artificial Intelligence, and Real-World Hate Crime

Is demand for conspiracy theories online linked to real-world hate crimes? By analyzing online search trends for 36 racially and politically-charged conspiracy theories in Michigan (2015-2019), we employ a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) to predict hate crime occurrences offline. A subset of theories including the Rothschilds family, Q-Anon, and The Great Replacement improves prediction accuracy, with effects emerging two to three weeks after fluctuations in searches. However, most theories showed no clear connection to offline hate crimes. Aligning with neutralization and differential association theories, our findings provide a partial empirical link between specific racially charged conspiracy theories and real-world violence. Just as well, this study underscores the potential for machine learning to be used in identifying harmful online patterns and advancing social science research.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2020

Disentangling Community-level Changes in Crime Trends During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Chicago

Recent studies exploiting city-level time series have shown that, around the world, several crimes declined after COVID-19 containment policies have been put in place. Using data at the community-level in Chicago, this work aims to advance our understanding on how public interventions affected criminal activities at a finer spatial scale. The analysis relies on a two-step methodology. First, it estimates the community-wise causal impact of social distancing and shelter-in-place policies adopted in Chicago via Structural Bayesian Time-Series across four crime categories (i.e., burglary, assault, narcotics-related offenses, and robbery). Once the models detected the direction, magnitude and significance of the trend changes, Firth's Logistic Regression is used to investigate the factors associated to the statistically significant crime reduction found in the first step of the analyses. Statistical results first show that changes in crime trends differ across communities and crime types. This suggests that beyond the results of aggregate models lies a complex picture characterized by diverging patterns. Second, regression models provide mixed findings regarding the correlates associated with significant crime reduction: several relations have opposite directions across crimes with population being the only factor that is stably and positively associated with significant crime reduction.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2020

Exploring the Effects of COVID-19 Containment Policies on Crime: An Empirical Analysis of the Short-term Aftermath in Los Angeles

This work investigates whether and how COVID-19 containment policies had an immediate impact on crime trends in Los Angeles. The analysis is conducted using Bayesian structural time-series and focuses on nine crime categories and on the overall crime count, daily monitored from January 1st 2017 to March 28th 2020. We concentrate on two post-intervention time windows - from March 4th to March 16th and from March 4th to March 28th 2020 - to dynamically assess the short-term effects of mild and strict policies. In Los Angeles, overall crime has significantly decreased, as well as robbery, shoplifting, theft, and battery. No significant effect has been detected for vehicle theft, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, intimate partner assault, and homicide. Results suggest that, in the first weeks after the interventions are put in place, social distancing impacts more directly on instrumental and less serious crimes. Policy implications are also discussed.

stat.OT↗