Crime, Criminal Justice, and the COVID-19 Crisis Lockdown: A Special Issue Introduction

• Published date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/10439862211061887
• Date: 01 November 2021
• Subject Matter: Introduction

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862211061887

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2021, Vol. 37(4) 476 –479

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862211061887

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Introduction

Crime, Criminal Justice,

and the COVID-19 Crisis

Lockdown: A Special Issue

Introduction

The seven articles included in this special issue of the Journal of Contemporary

Criminal Justice analyze the impact of the COVID-19 crisis lockdowns on crime and

criminal justice–related issues in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Paraguay, Panama,

Mexico, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom. They cover a full range of

subjects, from methodology to the empirical trends observed in different types of

crimes, including those “created” as a consequence of the pandemic, passing through

the risk of discrimination in the health and criminal justice systems.

In particular, three articles use the routine activities approach, developed by Cohen

and Felson in 1979, as their main theoretical framework. In that perspective, the lock-

downs dramatically reduced the risk of convergence in time and in the public space of

potential offenders and victims in the absence of capable guardians; conversely, they

increased the risk of convergence of the same elements in the private sphere and in the

cyberspace. Theoretically, it is hence plausible to hypothesize that, during the lock-

downs, offline crime in the public space would decrease, offline crime in the private

sphere would increase, and online crime would also increase. This is the premise of the

articles by Aebi et al. (2021), Kemp et al. (2021), and Iesue et al. (2021) that study

trends in different crimes before, during, and after the lockdowns. Kemp et al. (2021)

concentrate on fraud and cybercrime in the United Kingdom, Iesue et al. (2021) on

domestic violence in Guatemala, and Aebi et al. (2021) on femicide in Argentina,

Chile, Paraguay, Panama, Mexico, and Spain.

The results partially support the hypotheses formulated above. The devil is in the

details. Yes, in the United Kingdom cybercrime and cyber-enabled fraud increased

during the lockdowns, but the trends differed considerably according to the kind of

victims (organizations or individuals) and the type of fraud, especially cyber-enabled

frauds related to activities in the physical space (Kemp et al., 2021). Yes, nonlethal

domestic violence registered an overall increase when the unit of analysis is the whole

Guatemala, but there are several exceptions when the units of analyses are the differ-

ent departments of the country (Iesue et al., 2021). But no, femicide did not increase

in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Panama, Mexico, and Spain (Aebi et al., 2021). These

results challenge the apocalyptic view of the pandemic’s consequences on crime por-

trayed by the mass media and supported by some experts. They also show the impor-

tance of the situation in which crimes take place, while highlighting at the same time

the limitations of a theoretical approach based only on that aspect. In that context,

1061887CCJXXX10.1177/10439862211061887Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeAebi and Miró-Llinares

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