COVID-19: CRIME AND POLICING A FIRST SNAPSHOT OF ACADEMIC PUBLISHING ON CRIME TRENDS AND POLICE ACTIVITY DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

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Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and government measures to limit its spread have had a huge impact on society. Crime opportunities and criminal justice systems have also been affected by this health crisis. With the aim of international collaboration, a working group has been created to promote research among European researchers and thereby facilitate the exchange of information and comparative studies on the impact of Covid-19 on crime and criminal justice systems. Thus, in order to get an overview of the academic publishing, the School of Criminal Justice of the University of Lausanne has undertaken a preliminary review of publications released on crime trends and police activity during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research identified the manuscripts published in English between February 2020 and July 2021 in order to review the time period investigated, the geographic area, the data used, the analytical strategies and the results. In total, the keywords chosen were able to identify 128 manuscripts. Concerning crime trends, most of the results confirmed the drop and the U-shaped recovery for property crimes and street crimes in general while cybercrime and domestic violence seems to have increased during the lockdown. Concerning the police, it played an important role in making sure that the government health guidelines were enforced. The public’s trust in the police rose at the beginning of the crisis but the rise was only temporary. After the easing of the health guidelines, this trust declined as the police was still required to enforce some rules.