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Date Trend snippet:
19 June 2021
Relevance date:
2020, 2021
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- Trend snippet: COVID-19 reduced crime demands on criminal justice systems
Trends in Security
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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COVID-19 reduced crime demands on criminal justice systems
In general, the evidence shows that the COVID-10 pandemic reduced crime demands on criminal justice systems. In the UK, for example, it's an estimated drop of 32% percent in total crime during the height of restrictions. Calls for the police service in major US cities also declined drastically. While some cities saw high profile upticks in violent crime, overall crime rates declined.
It appears that crimes in the public sphere and relating to the night-time economy fell most dramatically. The most serious crime types have not fallen.
It appears that crimes in the public sphere and relating to the night-time economy fell most dramatically. The most serious crime types have not fallen.
More source info
Dealing with shifting demands
The COVID-19 epidemic had an immediate impact on patterns of crime across the world. The perennial challenges of measuring crime trends when many victims do not report crimes means there are ongoing debates about the level and nature of changes that occurred. A robust study of sixteen US cities, for example, suggested that any changes in recorded crime rates for serious assaults in public or private were not statistically significant. However, in general, the evidence is that COVID-19 reduced crime demands on criminal justice systems. In the UK, the ONS estimated a 32 percent reduction in total crime during the period from April to May when UK restrictions were at their height. This was driven by reductions in burglary and theft – which fell to just half the usual levels. Calls for police service in major US cities also fell dramatically. So while some cities saw high profile upticks in violent crime, overall crime rates declined – by around a quarter in Chicago and in New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told CNN that “Crime has dropped off – off the face of the map, really”.
