COVID-19 has led many governments to impose lockdowns in efforts to reduce the spread of the virus. One of the many consequences of the lockdown is a reduction in crime. We apply a difference-in-differences approach to the 2018–2020 Crime Statistics to investigate the effect of the 2020 lockdown on crime victimization in Japan. We find that the 2020 lockdown leads to 12.7% and 20.9% declines in violent and property crime victimization rates per 100,000 people, respectively. Moreover, we observe that premeditated crimes, such as breaking-and-entering and sexual assault, decline more than non-premeditated crimes, such as homicide. We also explore the heterogeneous effects of the lockdown by age groups. We observe that there is a significant decline in sexual assault victimization for those between the ages of 0 and 29, and there are significant declines in overall violent and property crime victimizations and their subtypes for those between ages of 30 and 59. Finally, we show that there is an improvement in suicide rates, which suggests that better mental health is the mechanism partially mediating the relationship between lockdown and crime victimization.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 的封锁和犯罪受害：安倍政府下的紧急状态

COVID-19 导致许多政府采取封锁措施，以减少病毒的传播。封锁的众多后果之一是减少犯罪。我们对 2018-2020 年犯罪统计数据采用了差异中的差异方法，以调查 2020 年封锁对日本犯罪受害的影响。我们发现，2020 年的封锁导致每 10 万人的暴力和财产犯罪受害率分别下降 12.7% 和 20.9%。此外，我们观察到，有预谋的犯罪，如闯入和性侵犯，比非预谋的犯罪（如杀人）下降得更多。我们还探索了不同年龄组封锁的异质性影响。我们观察到 0 到 29 岁之间的性侵犯受害率显着下降，