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Seizing the opportunity? Corona, social distancing and crime To control the COVID-19 outbreak Dutch government opted for a so-called intelligent lockdown. The virus as well as the lockdown caused significant personal and societal damage. It also created, however, a unique natural experiment. How did the forced stay in affect the crime levels? This article presents empirical data on crime trends during the lockdown. Initially, the general crime level decreased sharply. However, the general crime level quickly returned to pre-lockdown levels. Different types of crime displayed divergent trends, e.g. property crimes decreased sharply whereas online crime rates increased considerably. These trends fit rather well with an opportunity theoretical approach regarding crime.
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Kruisbergen et al. (2020) studied this question.
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