Kenny Jacoby, Mike Stucka and Kristine Phillips

USA TODAY

Crime rates plunged in cities and counties across the U.S. over the second half of March as the coronavirus pandemic drove millions of residents to stay inside their homes.

Police logged dramatically fewer calls for service, crime incidents and arrests in the last two weeks of March than each of the previous six weeks, a USA TODAY analysis of crime data published by 53 law enforcement agencies in two dozen states found. The analysis is among the largest studies measuring the impact of the coronavirus on crime and policing.

Massive drops in traffic and person stops – as much as 92% in some jurisdictions – helped drive sharp declines in drug offenses and DUIs. Thefts and residential burglaries decreased with fewer stores open and homes unoccupied, and some agencies logged fewer assaults and robberies. Bookings into each of nearly two dozen county jails monitored by the news organization fell by at least a quarter since February.

At the same time, calls for domestic disturbances and violence surged by 10% to 30% among many police agencies that contributed data. Several also saw increases in public nuisance complaints such as loud noise from parties. The Baltimore Police Department, for example, received 362 loud-music complaints in the last two weeks of March, nearly matching its total for all of February.

The trends reflect both a purposeful reduction in police activity and officer-initiated stops and the effect of stay-at-home orders that have closed huge swaths of Main Street and pushed people into their homes and out of traditional crime hot spots, such as bars, clubs and social events.

The U.S. confirmed its first coronavirus case Jan. 20 and its first death by the end of February. But it wasn’t until March 13 that President Donald Trump declared a national emergency and normal life in America ground to a halt.

The study compared weekly totals between Feb. 2 and March 28. Reporters analyzed daily calls for service and incident data published by 30 local police and sheriff’s agencies that range from those covering big cities like Dallas to small communities like St. John, Indiana. Analysis of arrests drew from inmate logs at nearly two dozen county jails in six states, which local USA TODAY Network newspapers already track daily.

Many police departments say they are intentionally arresting fewer people to avoid the potential spread of the coronavirus in jails. Police in Delray Beach, Florida, are reducing proactive policing, such as drug busts. In nearby Gainesville, Florida, officers are increasingly issuing summons instead of making arrests for minor offenses, Police chief inspector Jorge Campos said.

“It’s not that we’re not enforcing (the law),” Campos said. “It’s that we’re finding alternative ways of dealing with the issue rather than make physical arrests.”

Overall, calls for service fell by at least 12% and incidents by at least 21% at most of the police agencies. The county jails after March 15 booked arrestees at half the rate as before.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, crime rates plummeted after Gov. Larry Hogan shut down all bars, restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and large gatherings by executive order March 16. He has since issued a mandatory statewide stay-at-home order as positive cases in the state topped 1,000. By Friday, they exceeded 2,300, according to the CDC.

Nationally, coronavirus cases topped 239,000 and deaths surpassed 5,400, the CDC reported Friday.

The Montgomery County Police Department, just outside Washington, D.C., recorded 13% fewer call dispatches and more than a third fewer criminal incidents in the last two weeks of March compared with the previous six weeks.

The agency also has limited officers’ interaction with the public – they’re no longer making traffic stops unless absolutely necessary – and they’re issuing citations for minor offenses to avoid arrests, said Montgomery County Police Department Chief Marcus Jones.

“We’re kind of refocusing our commitment and trying to make sure our officers are safe,” Jones said, adding that two of the department’s 1,300 officers have tested positive for the coronavirus and a few others have had to self-quarantine.

But cases of domestic violence there spiked, even as most other crimes declined, Jones said. Data show Montgomery County police saw a 21% increase in such calls over the past two weeks, an average of 39 a day.

“It’s something we unfortunately expected knowing that people are going to be quarantined in their homes,” Jones said.

Other agencies are experiencing similar trends.

Detroit received 769 domestic violence calls over the past two weeks of March, a 9% spike from weeks prior. Tucson, Arizona, police recorded 292 domestic violence incidents, also up 9%. In Santa Rosa, California, which has been under shelter-in-place orders since March 17, city police saw domestic disturbance calls jump from 42 a week to 51.

In county jails, arrests on domestic-violence charges stayed relatively steady even as total inmate bookings fell by about half, data shows.

One of the fastest jail-booking declines occurred in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, where on Friday the 185th coronavirus infection was announced in the community of about 100,000 people. The Lafourche Parish Correctional Complex is now booking about as many people a week as it booked a day in February. It has eliminated in-person visitations.

Officers in Florida’s Volusia County, home to Daytona Beach, had charged about 25 people a week with driving under the influence before mid-March. It dropped to just 6 afterward.

The agency’s booking of senior citizens also fell during the same time period – from a dozen a week to just two in the last two weeks of March. Senior citizens are among those most at risk for serious complications resulting from the coronavirus.

Those trends are reflected nationwide. In the counties reviewed by USA TODAY, the average week included about 300 DUI bookings. Now, it’s at about 100. Senior citizens arrests are about a sixth of what they were in February.

Several police departments also recorded significant drops in drug, narcotics and alcohol crimes – some of the most common ways people land in jail in America, according to FBI data. Such incidents over the second half of March fell 76% in Denver; 87% in Providence, Rhode Island; and 45% in Seattle, the epicenter of the nation’s first major coronavirus outbreak, data shows.

Drug charges often result from traffic stops, Jones said. But such stops have ground to a near halt in some regions across the country in the past two weeks. In Cincinnati, police logged an average of 384 traffic stops a week before mid-March but 39 a day after – a 90% drop. In Santa Monica, California, traffic stops fell from 182 a week to 14. They fell 79% in Baltimore and 46% in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

In many regions, the traffic-stop declines dovetailed with fewer DUI incidents, which likely tanked after bars closed, Seattle police spokesman Patrick Michaud said. Police in Virginia Beach, Montgomery County and Seattle each recorded fewer than half as many DUIs in the second half of March compared with previous weeks on average.

“There are just less crimes of opportunity when the opportunity all but disappears because everyone is spending time indoors,” said Michaud, adding that residential burglaries also have decreased in Seattle in recent weeks.

But as Americans transition to life at home, some also appear to be struggling with thin walls and noisy neighbors.

In addition to Baltimore, Virginia Beach police received 249 public nuisance and loud-party complaints since mid-March, an 87% increase from previous weeks. General noise disturbance calls to Cincinnati police rose from 109 a week to 154. Fargo, North Dakota, police received 36 disturbance and loud-party complaints, up from 26 on average in previous weeks.

Contributing: Hannah Winston, USA TODAY NETWORK