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- Trend snippet: Worldwide crime patterns are affected by the COVID-19 crisis
Trends in Security Information
The HSD Trendmonitor is designed to provide access to relevant content on various subjects in the safety and security domain, to identify relevant developments and to connect knowledge and organisations. The safety and security domain encompasses a vast number of subjects. Four relevant taxonomies (type of threat or opportunity, victim, source of threat and domain of application) have been constructed in order to visualize all of these subjects. The taxonomies and related category descriptions have been carefully composed according to other taxonomies, European and international standards and our own expertise.
In order to identify safety and security related trends, relevant reports and HSD news articles are continuously scanned, analysed and classified by hand according to the four taxonomies. This results in a wide array of observations, which we call ‘Trend Snippets’. Multiple Trend Snippets combined can provide insights into safety and security trends. The size of the circles shows the relative weight of the topic, the filters can be used to further select the most relevant content for you. If you have an addition, question or remark, drop us a line at info@securitydelta.nl.
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Worldwide crime patterns are affected by the COVID-19 crisis
COVID-19 disruptions and crime patterns
Nearly any change that affects patterns of social life may affect crime patterns. For example, measures to restrict social movement during the epidemic in many places led to a dramatic overall fall in calls for service to the police. Domestic burglary and night-time assaults dropped significantly as homes were more likely to be occupied and the night time economy shut down. Shoplifting fell 75% in some places, as retail premises were closed in large numbers.
Meanwhile, the virus led to a surge in online offences, with the predicted surge in Coronavirus related scams quickly materializing. There was a significant amount of fraud relating to government stimulus packages. Domestic violence problems increased too, as perpetrators spent more time in confined quarters with potential victims and experienced increased stress.
Changing daily patterns of movement and shifting opportunity structures will likely continue to affect crime for some time. It is probably safe to say that as more of our economic activity continues to shift online, crime will follow – at least without improvements in online security. And if cityscapes are reshaped by remote work and social distancing – rather than continuing the long-term trend towards the density that facilitates social exchange – crime shifts will likely also be felt swiftly.
The impact of economic and social disruption on crime, however, is less certain. If and to what extent unemployment leads to increases in crime in the short or long term, for example, seems to depend on social safety nets and even factors such as the timing of benefits payments.
In our work, interviewees were in general pessimistic about the likely impact of COVID-19 and responses to it. Recent years have seen rises in ‘deaths of despair’ relating to suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol abuse in the US and UK. And a senior UK official speculated this could continue, mentioning the “long-term mental health impacts of COVID and thinking about where that leads… drugs and alcohol abuse and crime.” A US judge made a similar observation that the short-term withdrawal of some mental health support in prisons and her community as a result of COVID could have more immediate impacts.