Empty Streets, Busy Internet: A Time-Series Analysis of Cybercrime and Fraud Trends During COVID-19

Crime and deviance during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…According to recent evidence, since the pandemic started, there has been an increase in such types of cybercrime as denial‐of‐service attacks, fraud, cyber‐related harassment, hate crimes, media hacking, phishing, and online shopping fraud (Buil‐Gil et al., 2021; Collier et al., 2020; Horgan et al., 2021; Kemp et al., 2021; Plachkinova, 2021). For example, drawing on victimization data, Sampson and Ojen (2021) find that phishing and hacking have been the commonly experienced cybercrimes in Nigeria.…”

The effect of COVID-19 restrictions on routine activities and online crime

“…That is, it is possible that the increases reported reflect natural fluctuations that would be observed over a longer time series. In a follow-up study, Kemp et al, (2021)…”

“…The third offence type thus serves as a non-equivalent dependent variable (Shadish, 2002) which allows us to check that patterns were selective and in line with particular theoretical expectations (Cook et al, 2002). A final offender-oriented expectation is that offenders may have adapted during the pandemic, switching from committing crime in urban environments to doing so online (Buil-Gil et al, 2020;Farrell & Birks, 2018;Kemp et al, 2021;Nivette et al, 2021). If true, crime committed online would be expected to increase during the pandemic, but there would be little reason to expect it to decline as restrictions were lifted.…”

“…Some focus on what psychological (or similar) factors motivate offending, ignoring the role of crime opportunity, while others focus on the latter, taking offender motivation as a given.Testing such theories is difficult absent significant events that influence both, but the COVID-19 pandemic has created such conditions. As a consequence of government containment policies, we have seen dramatic changes to people's dayto-day activities, with people spending more time at home (ONSa, 2020; ILO 2020) and more time online (Kemp et al, 2021), reducing opportunities for crime in urban environments but increasing them online. Equally, by restricting mobility, containment policies have had the potential to cause economic and emotional strain that would affect offender motivation -in the short-term at least.…”

Impacto da Pandemia da COVID-19 nos Padrões de Crimes no Município de Curitiba

“…O modelo de regressão sazonal (SARIMA) foi utilizado por [Ashby 2020] para projetar o número de ocorrências de 2020 em 16 cidades dos EUA, apontando como resultado queda significativa no crime de roubo/invasão em Los Angeles, Chicago e Memphis. O modelo de média móvel integrado autorregressivo (ARIMA) foi utilizado por [Kemp et al 2021] para analisar crimes de estelionato no Reino unido durante o período de medidas restritivas de distanciamento social, destacando o aumento além do previsto deste tipo de crime.…”