COVID-19 and crime – a look from European and national perspectives

Abstract

This paper presents, on the example of selected European countries, including Poland, changes in the image of crime occurring as a result of the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The results of studies conducted in the first months of the pandemic, although limited by the availability of research results, allow only a partial grasp of the shaping trends of changes in the social phenomenon of crime. Those findings are extremely interesting because – for the first time – we are dealing with the occurrence of a phenomenon whose impact is global, and in this context, we can also assess changes in the trends of crime: its size, nature and types.