1. Environmental
May 6, 2020updated 12 Jul 2022 8:15am

Crime in Northern Ireland falls by one-third during lockdown

By Nicu Calcea

The number of crimes recorded in Northern Ireland has fallen by nearly a third in the five weeks starting 23 March – giving us a first glimpse of how the Covid-19 lockdown has affected crime in the UK.

The figures, released today by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, shows that all major types of crime have seen a downward progression since the beginning of the lockdown.

Sexual offences in particular were down by nearly half (48.8%) compared to the same period last year, with robberies down by 43.9%. Drug offences were down 39.3% and burglaries by 39.0% as people spend more time in their homes.

Northern Ireland is the first to release records of crime activity that cover a significant time period since social distancing measures were introduced in the UK.

Data regarding crime levels for England, Scotland and Wales is only available up to the end of March 2020 so cannot reliably be used to track trends.

The figures for Northern Ireland are for recorded crimes – by definition, crimes that do not get reported to the police will not feature in the statistics.

Content from our partners
The key role of heat network integration in creating one of London’s most sustainable buildings
The role of green bonds in financing the urban energy transition
The need to grow London's EV infrastructure at speed and scale

— Nicu Calcea

This article is from the CityMetric archive: some formatting and images may not be present.
Topics in this article : ,
Websites in our network