LATEST FIGURES FROM the CSO show how there has been a significant reduction in the number of crimes happening during the Covid crisis. 

The stats body today released their second-quarter figures, which show how burglaries, thefts as well as sexual assaults are down during the period April-June.

For example, the number of burglary offences recorded during the second quarter of the year was 52.8% lower than for the equivalent period in 2019.

Other stats include:

• Theft – down 38.7%
• Robbery – down 29.9%
• Sexual offences – down 20.5%
• Assaults and related offences -down 15.9%

While there has been a welcome reduction in the above offences, there have been areas which have seen an increase during the Covid crisis. 

Fraud, deception and related offences are up 7.1% with 7,887 incidents recorded. 

Drug offences are up 13.5% with 22,773 offences recorded in the three month period. 

These statistics are categorised by the CSO as” Under Reservation”. This means that the quality of these statistics do not meet the standards required of official statistics published by the CSO.

Sam Scriven, a statistician at the CSO, said the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on levels of recorded crime is apparent in the latest statistics.

“The number of victims of assault recorded in Q2 2020 was 989 or 19.2% lower than for the corresponding period in 2019. This fall was mostly accounted for by a reduction in male victims, down 787 (26%) on Q2 2019.

“Younger age groups for females showed reductions in the number of victims, however the numbers of female victims in age groups 30-44 (up 1.8%), and 60 or over (up 18.4%) were higher in Q2 2020 than in Q2 2019.”