Governments around the world have enforced strict guidelines on social interaction and mobility to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Evidence has begun to emerge which suggests that such dramatic changes in people’s routine activities have yielded similarly dramatic changes in criminal behavior. This study represents the first ‘look back’ on six months of the nationwide lockdown in England and Wales. Using open police-recorded crime trends, we provide a comparison between expected and observed crime rates for fourteen different offence categories between March and August, 2020. We find that most crime types experienced sharp, short-term declines during the first full month of lockdown. This was followed by a gradual resurgence as restrictions were relaxed. Major exceptions include anti-social behavior and drug crimes. Findings shed light on the opportunity structures for crime and the nuances of using police records to study crime during the pandemic.

世界各国政府已执行严格的社交互动和流动准则，以控制 COVID-19 病毒的传播。越来越多的证据表明，人们的日常活动发生了如此巨大的变化，犯罪行为也发生了类似的巨大变化。这项研究是对英格兰和威尔士全国封锁六个月的首次“回顾”。利用警方公开记录的犯罪趋势，我们对 2020 年 3 月至 8 月期间 14 种不同犯罪类别的预期犯罪率和观察到的犯罪率进行了比较。我们发现，大多数犯罪类型在封锁的第一个整月期间经历了短期的急剧下降。随着限制的放松，这种情况逐渐复苏。主要例外包括反社会行为和毒品犯罪。调查结果揭示了犯罪的机会结构以及在大流行期间利用警察记录研究犯罪的细微差别。