By Konrad Buczkowski and Paulina Wiktorska

This book presents a synthesis of selected trends in the dynamics and structure of crime in Poland over the past 30 years, in the context of ongoing social transformations in the wider region. The book explores the impact of the deep systemic transformation of the late 1980s and early 1990s on the phenomenon of crime, its structure and dynamics, and the policy of its control in the following decades. It also examines the impact of changes resulting from the dynamic development of Polish society in the 21st century in the context of global changes towards the emergence of a new form of collective life, a mobile information society based on modern technologies. The focus is primarily on those deviant behaviours that can most obviously be linked to social changes, primarily political, economic, legal, and technological. The work examines disclosed crime figures available in official statistics. It also looks to the future considering the global societal changes caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on preliminary observations made in selected countries, the authors describe associated changes in criminal behaviour and identify some pivotal developments that may influence future trends. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of criminal law, criminology, sociology and criminal policy.

London; New York; Routledge, 2024. 122p.

Edited by Marcelo F. Aebi · Fernando Miró-Llinares · Stefano Caneppele

This open access book critically revisits 30 years of debate surrounding the evolution of crime trends, aiming to reconcile various hypotheses and controversies. It scrutinizes the concept of the "crime drop," highlighting the methodological pitfalls in understanding the causation mechanisms behind this phenomenon. By examining the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on daily routines and crime, the book challenges traditional notions of crime reduction. Drawing on extensive examples, data from official and non-official statistics, and crime surveys, this book illustrates how cyberspace has fundamentally reshaped the nature of crime. Despite this transformation, integrating cybercrime into conventional crime statistics remains an unaccomplished task. The book offers a thorough methodological discussion on measuring cybercrime, addressing the challenges researchers face in quantifying and explaining crimes committed both in cyberspace and across physical and digital boundaries. This book speaks to students, academics, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, and cybercrime. It is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of modern crime trends and the challenges posed by the digital age.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2025, 141 p.

By Karolina Kamra Kregert

The main purpose of the Swedish Crime Survey (SCS) is to study trends in self-reported exposure to crime, fear of crime, confidence in the criminal justice system and crime victims' contact with the criminal justice system in the Swedish population (16-84 years). The survey also aims to describe differences among population groups, such as differences between men and women or among different age groups. This chapter presents a selection of the indicators included in the report, to summarise the results and provide an overall picture of trends and patterns. Note that, in the context of the SCS, exposure to crime refers to events that occurred during the previous calendar year, meaning that SCS 2024 refers to exposure to crime in 2023. Fear of crime refer to perceptions over the past year, while unsafety and confidence in the criminal justice system refer to perceptions at the time the questionnaire was answered. Trends Exposure to sexual offences, threats and bicycle theft have decreased, while fraud has increased There is a decreasing trend in the proportion of the population who state that they have been exposed to sexual offences, threats and bicycle theft. Exposure to sexual offences has significantly decreased in this year's survey (3.8 % in 2023, compared to 4.7 % in 2022), and after a sharp increase in the period 2012-2017, has begun decreasing instead. The proportion of respondents having been exposed to threats has also decreased (7.4% in 2023, compared to 7.7% in 2022), with an evident decreasing trend since 2020. Before that, there was an increase between 2014 and 2019. Furthermore, the proportion of households exposed to bicycle theft has decreased for the fourth consecutive year. Both sales fraud and card and credit fraud have increased in this year's survey. For sales fraud, an increasing trend has been observed since the first measuring point (2016), with a significant increase in this year's survey (from 6.1%, in 2022, to 6.9%, in 2023). Card and credit fraud have increased in the last two years, having previously decreased in 2020 and 2021. In terms of exposure to robbery, there was a decreasing trend as of 2020, but in this year's survey the proportion is the same as the previous year. For assault, pickpocketing, online harassment, harassment, burglary and car theft, the proportion has remained stable over the last three to four years.

English summary of Brå report 2024:8

Stockholm: Swedish National Council on Crime Prevention, 2024. 30p.

By Lina Fjelkegård and Emma Patel

The number of residential burglaries has decreased sharply in recent years – between 2017 and 2023, they were basically halved. However, many people still become victims of burglary. In 2023, 10,000 residential burglaries were reported to the police, and only 4 per cent were solved. Those affected may experience the burglary as a violation of privacy, and feel unsafe at home. For these reasons, Brå initiated this study on residential burglaries. The purpose is to provide an overall picture of the nature of residential burglaries, but also to examine the development of this crime over time, and how the police handle residential burglaries. Different methods and materials were used for this. We start from a number of preliminary investigations into residential burglaries, which Brå has coded and analysed. We have also used reporting statistics, data from police records, and interviews with police employees. International networks have probably had an impact Between 2007 and 2017, the number of reported residential burglaries in Sweden increased significantly. Brå has investigated possible explanations, and one piece of the puzzle seems to be increased activity from international crime networks from Eastern Europe. This may, in turn, be due to more open borders to the East and increased unemployment after the financial crisis in 2008. After 2017, the number of reported residential burglaries decreased – and around that time, border protection in Sweden was also enhanced. Meanwhile, the number of suitable objects for theft in dwellings seems to have decreased. The pandemic, which meant that people worked from home more, may also have contributed to a decrease in residential burglaries. However, Brå's review is only cursory, and several factors may have influenced the development of residential burglaries. Differences between single-family houses and flats Metropolitan municipalities generally have the highest number of reported burglaries per dwelling. Sparsely populated municipalities have the lowest number. The differences between the metropolitan municipalities and others mainly concern burglaries of single-family homes – flat burglaries are more evenly distributed across the country. There are also differences between single-family homes and flats in how the burglaries are committed. Single-family home burglaries are most often done by someone breaking open a window or a back door, while flats are more often breached through the entrance door. Flat burglaries are also more often committed with a low degree of finesse than single-family home burglaries. Most residential burglaries are committed during the day and the victim is rarely at home. The things stolen are often small and valuable. Two-thirds acted professionally To describe suspects of residential burglaries, Brå made a distinction between amateur and professional perpetrators. In one-third of the preliminary investigations, the perpetrators were classified as clear amateurs. They more frequently burglarised flats, and they relatively often had an addiction or mental illness. The female suspects most often fell into this group. The more professional perpetrators are more difficult to identify – they are less often caught and there is therefore less information about them in Brå's material. However, there is one group that can be described as clearly professional, and this is probably where you’ll find the international crime networks. According to the police, they often use false identities, change registration plates, and clean up traces at the crime scene. There is probably also an intermediate category of perpetrators who are neither amateurs nor among the most expert. The boundaries are also fluid for what is organised crime and what is not. People can, for example, be recruited temporarily by the criminal networks. The police could take more investigative measures According to the police's internal recommendations, the authority should always send out a police patrol in the event of a residential burglary, and then use specially trained staff for the technical investigation. Both of these things are also often done – a patrol was sent out in 73 per cent of burglaries of single-family houses. On average, the police carry out four investigative measures per residential burglary. However, Brå estimates that more measures probably could have been taken in almost half of the preliminary investigations. Often, there is no interrogation of an injured party or a witness. Police Region Stockholm carries out fewer investigative measures than the other police regions. Consistently, the police take more measures in cases of burglaries of single-family houses than in cases of flat burglaries. Today, the police immediately dismiss one-third of reports of residential burglaries, and the proportion has increased over time. It is also reasonable to immediately dismiss crimes that have little chance of being solved. Not everything that is reported is a crime – Brå sees that one-third of the preliminary investigations probably do not include residential burglaries. At the same time, the proportion of solved cases is only four per cent, and Brå estimates that the police can quite often do more. In particular, interrogations of injured parties and witnesses can be carried out more often. The police can improve coordination of investigations and work more on finding stolen goods There are four main ways to catch a perpetrator; in the act, trace evidence, witness identification, and stolen goods. This is according to the reported preliminary investigations. Police catch a suspect in the act in one third of the cases. In 29 per cent of cases, trace evidence is used to catch the suspect, usually DNA. Often, special local crime scene investigators (LCSI) collect traces. They conduct thorough examinations, which can be used to detect serial crime, but which rarely lead to a match in the police database. Therefore, Brå considers it could sometimes be more efficient to let the first police patrol do the crime scene investigation. This is especially true if there is no functioning crime linkage that can make use of traces collected by LCSI. Such coordination is lacking in several police regions – and it benefits organised crime when each case is handled locally. In one in five cases, witness identification is used to catch the perpetrator. More identifications could probably be made if the police interviewed more witnesses than today. There is also potential for improvement in terms of stolen goods. Today, a fifth of the cases are solved by the police identifying stolen goods. However, the goods are often discovered in connection with other matters – there is not much independent monitoring of stolen goods within the police. Brå assesses that there is a need for better IT tools and more active work in finding stolen goods. Report 2024:12 Stockholm: Swedish National Council on Crime Prevention, 2024. 7p.

By Neil Donnelly

To examine 10-year trends in offending by females in New South Wales (NSW) between 2014 and 2023. METHOD Data were extracted from the NSW Police Force’s Computerised Operational Policing System (COPS) for all people proceeded against by the NSW Police Force between 2014 and 2023. The number and proportion of offences committed by female and male offenders are presented. Offending trends are examined across 32 specific offence categories using the average annual percentage change in offences and the Kendall’s rank order correlation test to determine statistical significance. This analysis is conducted for the entire population of female and male offenders regardless of age, then repeated for the subset of young offenders. RESULTS Between 2014 and 2023 the number of females proceeded against by NSW police increased by 40%, compared to just 17% for males. The proportion of female offenders grew by around 15%, from 19% of all offenders in 2014 to 22% of all offenders in 2023. Female offenders were most commonly proceeded against for steal from retail store (12%), possess/use drugs (12%), domestic violence (DV) assault (11%), non-DV assault (7%) and breach bail conditions (7%). Much of the overall growth in female offending can be explained by increases in a small number of high-volume offence categories. These include: breach of Apprehended Violence Orders (12% increase in female offences from 2014 to 2023 versus a 7% increase in male offenders); breach bail conditions (12% vs. 8%); DV assault (8% vs. 2%); and non-DV assault (4% vs. 1%). The average annual number of female offenders (compared to males) also increased across several lower volume offences, although these contributed less to the growth in female offending overall. Most predominantly: sexual touching, sexual act and other sexual offences (13% vs. 2.5%); motor vehicle theft (12% vs. 9%); prohibited weapons offences (8% vs. 4%); break and enter non-dwelling (7% vs. stable); and trespass (6% vs. 3%). Trends and offending patterns were similar for young female offenders aged 10-17 years. One difference was the number of young female offenders grew by just 20% between 2014 and 2023 (compared to relatively stable trends for young male offenders). CONCLUSION While there has been a long-term increase in the number of female offenders proceeded against by the NSW Police Force, they continue to represent a small proportion of all offenders. Further analysis utilising representative surveys may provide insight int

Sydney: NSW BUREAU OF CRIME STATISTICS AND RESEARCH - 2024. 14p.

By Takahito Shimada, Ai Suzuki and Mamoru Aremiya

Background: City-specific temporal analysis has been commonly used to investigate the impact of COVID-19-related behavioural regulation policies on crime. However, these previous studies fail to consider differences in the intensity of intervention among cities and the impact of these behavioural regulation policies on crime trends nationwide. This study performs panel data analyses to examine how the declaration of a state of emergency (SoE) affected ambient population and crime in Japan, taking advantage of the fact that the SoE was implemented at different times in different prefectures. Methods: The current study uses two sets of panel data of 47 prefectures for 22 weeks from February to July 2020: (1) the data on ambient population in five types of locations provided by the Google Mobility Reports, and (2) official crime data of six types of crime: residential burglary, commercial burglary, theft of/from vehicle, bicycle theft, sexual assault, and violence and injury. Firstly, an ordinary least squares regression analysis was performed to examine the impact of the SoE on the ambient population. Then a negative binomial model with fixed effects was adopted to examine the effect of the ambient population on the crime trends. Findings: The SoE declaration was found to increase the ambient population in 'residential', and decrease that in other settings including 'workplaces', 'transit stations', and 'retail and recreation' in targeted prefectures. Spill-over effects of the SoE were observed on the ambient population of non-SoE prefectures. The ambient population have impacted five out of the six types of crime examined, except for sexual assault. After controlling for the ambient population, we observed an increase in commercial burglary and theft of/from the vehicle in all prefectures during the SoE weeks, compared to the weeks when the SoE was not declared. Conclusions: The declaration of the SoE during the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ambient population in the SoE-prefectures, resulting the changes in crime levels as well. In addition, the implementation of the SoE in specific prefectures was found to have a contextual impact on national-level crime trends. Furthermore, the implementation of the SoE caused changes in some crime types that could not be explained by the changes in the ambient population, suggesting that the implementation of the SoE affected offenders' decision-making. It is also worth noting that the changes in ambient population and crime trends during the pandemic were observed in Japan where the behavioural regulation policy without law enforcement was introduced.

Crime Science 2023 12:13