Lockdown saw a decrease in crime rates, CrimeRate, a statistical project which analyses open data from police forces said.
The sites analysis shows an overall drop in crime over the past 12 months which has left Sheffield being the second safest major city in the UK. The overall rate fell by 3.3 per cent across the course of 2020 with April showing a mass decrease in crime after lockdown was first introduced with rates falling from 9.2 per cent to 5.9 per cent between march and April.
Tom Buck, data scientist at CrimeRate said: “Crimes such as shoplifting, burglary, theft, robbery, shoplifting, and vehicle crime all saw massive drops. On average these sorts of crimes fell by 80 per cent.
“However, drug offences have were up 50 per cent in October and in November were more than doubling the numbers seen in 2019.”
In June 2020, the Office of National Statics realised a report showing a 30 per cent increase in drug offences in England and Wales since the announcement of the first lockdown compared to the same point in 2019.
Billy Gazard from the Office for National Statistics Centre for Crime and Justice said: “Police recording of drug offences increased sharply throughout the April to June period, reflecting proactive police activity as overall crime levels reduced.”
Mr Gazard said this suggests that due to other drops in crime as a result of the lockdowns, the police have been able to change their focus to drug crime which has led to more arrests.
Other crimes such as bicycle theft and sexual offences have fluctuated over the past 12 months in Sheffield but each show drops during the lockdowns.
