Fraud on rise as burglary and thefts drop in lockdown
Levels of recorded crime have fallen sharply during the pandemic, new CSO figures show.
The number of burglary offences recorded in the year to March 2021 was 45.4% lower than a year earlier.
And there were significant falls in:
- Theft (down 30.7%),
- Robbery (down 26.4%), and
- Assaults and related offences (down 13.9%) in the year to March 2021.
The number of fraud crimes rose by 13.7% in the year to March 2021, while drugs offences (+9.5%) and weapons offences (+7.6%) also increased.
A total of 10,459 offences were recorded for breaches of COVID-19 regulations in Q1 2021.
Breaches
This is a marked increase on 1,090 such offences recorded during 2020 (304 in Q2 2020, 262 in Q3 2020, 524 in Q4 2020), and reflects the introduction of a new system of Fixed Payment Notices in respect of breaches of COVID-19 regulations in December 2020.
The figure includes unpaid fines and other offences, but does not include fines which were paid.