Investigating the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on stranger sex offender behaviour and victim vulnerability.

在危机时期，我们知道罪犯继续犯罪，并以新的背景所提供的方式犯罪（Thornton & Voigt，2012）。性犯罪者是多才多艺的（Lovell等人，2019），并根据犯罪机会改变他们的犯罪行为（Woodhams & Komarzynska，2014）。新冠肺炎疫情是一场危机，它将改变犯罪者的行为，以及谁容易遭受性暴力，以及在什么情况下。我们的研究非常紧迫，因为在英国和国际上，警方和其他利益相关者现在需要知道如何保护人们免受新型冠状病毒肺炎造成的性暴力的增加和新的脆弱性，以及如何最好地支持那些受害者。我们将解决这一研究空白，记录'谁，什么，何时，何地和如何'的陌生人性犯罪（Leclerc等人，2016年），前，后-（以及可能的后）COVID-19，以及由不同的地方/国家限制定义的较短时间段。我们的项目合作伙伴，国家犯罪局严重犯罪分析科（SCAS），有一个独特的，严重陌生人性犯罪的大数据集。利用这一点，我们将记录2020年3月至2021年9月期间犯罪者作案手法（MO）和受害者脆弱性的变化，并将其与2019冠状病毒病前一年的数据（2019年3月至2020年2月）进行比较。这些数据将使用我们在社会和工程科学分析技术方面的互补专业知识进行重复的多层次分析。例如，将对不同限制时期的行为相对频率进行比较，并将趋势与其他研究小组提出的关于犯罪率的宏观调查结果进行比较。2019冠状病毒病危机不太可能孤立地影响特定行为;因此，我们还将使用聚类技术研究行为之间的共同发生模式。除了与利益相关者密切相关外，我们的研究还将为关于情景犯罪预防和性犯罪的稀疏文献带来新的见解（Chiu et al.，2020年）。传播我们的方法将有助于其他国家，在2019冠状病毒病爆发期间，陌生人性犯罪的比例很高（例如，肯尼亚; Flowe等人，2020年）。我们的研究结果将与未来流行病和事件的准备和应对有关，其中人口的日常活动（当地/全国）被改变或中断（例如，大流行病、自然灾害、人道主义紧急情况）。

In times of crisis, we know that offenders continue to commit crimes, and do so in a manner afforded by the new context (Thornton & Voigt, 2012). Sexual offenders are versatile (Lovell et al., 2019), and change their offending behaviour in accordance with the opportunity to offend (Woodhams & Komarzynska, 2014). The Covid-19 outbreak is a crisis that will alter offender behaviour, as well as who is vulnerable to sexual violence and under what circumstances. Our research is highly urgent because, in the UK and internationally, the police and other stakeholders need to know now how to protect people from increased and new vulnerabilities to sexual violence created by Covid-19, and how to best support those victimised. We will address this research gap, documenting the 'who, what, when, where and how' of stranger sexual offending (Leclerc et al. 2016), pre-, peri- (and potentially, post-) Covid-19, and across shorter time-periods defined by differing local/national restrictions.Our project partner, the Serious Crime Analysis Section (SCAS) of the National Crime Agency, has a unique, large dataset of serious stranger sexual offences. Using this, we will document how offender modus operandi (MO) and victim vulnerability changes from March 2020 to September 2021, and compare this to one year of pre-Covid-19 data (March 2019 to February 2020). These data will be subject to repeated, multi-level analyses using our complementary expertise in analytical techniques from the social and engineering sciences. For example, relative frequencies for behaviours will be compared for periods of differing restrictions, and trends will be compared to macro-level findings regarding crime rates being produced by other research groups. The Covid-19 crisis is unlikely to impact on specific behaviours in isolation; therefore, we will also study patterns of co-occurrence between behaviours using clustering techniques.As well as being of urgent relevance to stakeholders, our research will bring new insights to the sparse literature on situational crime prevention and sexual offending (Chiu et al., 2020). Dissemination of our methodology will assist other countries where, during the Covid-19 outbreak, the proportion of stranger sexual offences is high (e.g., Kenya; Flowe et al., 2020). Our findings will be relevant for preparations and responses to future pandemics and events where a population's routine activities (locally/nationally) are changed or disrupted (e.g., pandemics, natural disasters, humanitarian emergencies).