England went into lockdown in April, forcing us to change many things about our lifestyle-another unexpected change across the UK is crime levels.

While most regions are experiencing reduced levels of crime some are seeing the opposite effect during lockdown.

By using data from the police, we can compare crime levels in April 2019 and April 2020 to measure what impact the lockdown has had on criminal activity.

This is how crime levels in County Durham have changed during lockdown.


Compared to last year, there were fewer crimes committed at the start of lockdown in County Durham. A total of 5413 incidents were reported in April 2019, and 5150 incidents were reported in April 2020.

Anti-social behaviour was the most reported incident in April 2020 (1926)- 741 more cases than in April 2019.

In April 2019, Violence and sexual offences were the most reported crime- there were 1786 reported incidents last year, compared to 1647 in 2020.

With more people staying at home, you would expect burglary rates to be lower in April 2020- this is confirmed by the data.

272 burglary incidents were reported in 2019 compared with 175 at the start of lockdown- this is a difference of 97.

Criminal damage and arson has also dropped drastically during lockdown- 641 incidents were reported in April 2019, compared with 392 in April 2020.

Where are these incidents taking place?

According to the police data, Front Street is the road where most crimes are committed. There were 44 incidents in April 2020- this compared to 50 in 2019.

17 of the Front Street crimes in 2020 were related to anti-social behaviour.

Other streets with high crime in 2020 include Station Road (27 incidents) and Victoria Street(25 incidents).