(2022-05-05) Silva Gomez, Santiago, 1997-; Pham, Van Hoang.
COVID-19 not only impacted the health of people around the world; it also impacted the global economy, crime, food insecurity, and countless other areas. Governments took action to help their people. The emergency-Meals-to-You (eMTY) program delivered meals to students of low income families during the lockdown. In this thesis, I evaluate the effect of eMTY on crime in Texas. I analyze domestic violence, theft, and drug-related crimes in Austin and Dallas at the zip-week level. I first use OLS, Two Way Fixed Effects (TWFE), and Poisson regressions to determine that eMTY decreased crime in Texas during the lockdown. I then use networks analysis with TWFE regressions to look at how the interconnectedness of zip codes within the city influenced the effect of eMTY on crime. I find that the negative effect that eMTY had on crime was lessened for zip codes that are more interconnected in the city.