England's coronavirus lockdown was announced in April 2020- since then, many aspects of our lifestyles have completely changed.

However, the way we work and socialise aren’t the only things to have altered- crime rates and the type of crimes committed have also changed.

By using police date, we can compare crime rates in April 2020 and April 2019 to see how much they have changed in Blackburn and Darwen.

In some areas across the UK, crime rates dropped by as much as 20% after going into lockdown.

However, the same statistic can’t be applied to Blackburn and Darwen which saw an increase. In April 2019, 1897 crimes were reported compared to 2355 in April 2020.

Anti-social behaviour is the most reported crime in each year, with 537 cases in April 2019 and a whopping 1357 in 2020.

However, violent and sexual offence reports decreased at the start of lockdown, with 580 in 2019 and 445 in 2020.

Criminal damage and arson reports also decreased during lockdown- 113 incidents were reported in 2020 compared with 152 in April 2019.

Shop lifting reports were also down in 2020, with 53 reported compared to 103 in 2019.

As more people are at home, you might expect burglary cases to decrease during lockdown- but this isn’t the case for Blackburn and Darwen. There were 91 reported burglaries in 2020 and 92 in 2019.

Where are the crimes happening?

Most of the crimes in April 2019 and 2020 happen in or near supermarkets- there were 36 incidents reported near them in 2020 and 58 in 2019.

As they were forced to close, it’s unsurprising that reported crimes at nightclubs dropped (2 in 2020 compared to 12 in 2019).

In terms of location, Heaton Street in Blackburn has been the street with the most reported incidents in April 2020 (21).

In April 2019, the crime crown went to Haslingden Road where 18 incidents were reported.