The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected social life. In efforts to reduce the spread of the virus, countries around the world implemented social restrictions, including social distancing, working from home, and the shuttering of numerous businesses. These social restrictions have also affected crime rates. In this study, we investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of offending (crimes include property, violent, mischief, and miscellaneous) in Queensland, Australia. In particular, we examine this impact across numerous settings, including rural, regional and urban. We measure these shifts across the restriction period, as well as the staged relaxation of these restrictions. In order to measure impact of this period we use structural break tests. In general, we find that criminal offences have significantly decreased during the initial lockdown, but as expected, increased once social restrictions were relaxed. These findings were consistent across Queensland’s districts, save for two areas. We discuss how these findings are important for criminal justice and social service practitioners when operating within an extraordinary event.

中文翻译：

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不知何故，我总是一个人呆着：COVID-19，澳大利亚昆士兰州的社会隔离和犯罪

COVID-19大流行严重影响了社会生活。为了减少病毒的传播，世界各地的国家实施了社会限制措施，包括社会隔离，在家工作以及关闭许多企业。这些社会限制也影响了犯罪率。在这项研究中，我们调查了澳大利亚昆士兰州COVID-19大流行对犯罪频率（犯罪包括财产，暴力，恶作剧和杂项）的影响。特别是，我们考察了包括农村，区域和城市在内的众多环境中的这种影响。我们测量了整个限制期内的这些变化，以及这些限制的分阶段放宽。为了衡量这一时期的影响，我们使用了结构破坏测试。一般来说，我们发现，在最初的锁定期间，刑事犯罪已大大减少，但正如预期的那样，一旦社会限制放宽，刑事犯罪就会增加。除两个地区外，这些发现在昆士兰州所有地区都是一致的。我们讨论了在异常事件中进行操作时，这些发现对于刑事司法和社会服务从业者如何重要。