Police crime statistics (Austria)

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The police crime statistics (PKS) have been used since 2001 to record and present the development of criminal activity in Austria . A report is prepared and published annually by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BK). This shows the public the current crime situation in Austria compared to the past ten years. In addition, strategic criminal police measures are taken on the basis of these figures. The PKS therefore also serves the preventive and persecutory fight against crime and is the basis for organizational planning and decisions. For example, since 2014 there has been a broad package of measures to combat the “twilight break”, consisting of analysis, manhunt and investigative work, and increased preventive measures.

procedure

The PKS acts as advertisement statistics on the basis of the Criminal Code (StGB) and the ancillary criminal law. Only acts that are criminally criminal are recorded which are reported to the police and transmitted by them to the court. The time of notification does not have to correspond to the time of the offense, since the time span of the investigation work can lie in between. The display is then registered in the database of the EDV center of the BMI , saved and ultimately processed into tables by the BK. The reporting behavior of the population, the intensity of police controls and legal changes have an influence on the PKS figures.

The PKS also contains the number of attempts threatened with punishment, the number of suspects identified and a range of other information on cases, victims or suspects. The dark field of crime is also not recorded, as is the outcome of the court proceedings.

Under the collective term "Big Five", the BK summarizes the five fields of crime with the greatest influence on society's sense of security. These include break-ins into apartments and houses, theft of motor vehicles, certain violent crimes, as well as internet and white-collar crime.

Development from 2009 to 2018

Development of total crime in Austria from 2009 to 2018

Austria is safer than ever before,” says the Austrian Ministry of the Interior in the Police Criminal Statistics (PKS) 2018. However, the data evaluated in the PKS only go back to the beginning of the electronic evaluation in 2000. However, the states of the western world had a low point in crime rates in the 1950s, which may also be visible in old Austrian statistics. Since the early 1990s, crime has been falling again in the Western world . But crime rates are also falling in other regions of the world, especially in Asia.

The homicide rate is used as an index for comparing the general propensity to violence over long periods of time and large spatial distances. Austria had 0.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016. A high point was in 1991 with 1.3 cases. Today's 0.7 cases are below the Western European average, which is one. The average for all of Europe was 3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the global average was 6.1. East Asian countries have an average of 0.6, Singapore only 0.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Detailed, nationwide data has been published in the PKS since 2001. In 2018, fewer than 500,000 reported offenses were recorded for the first time. The clearance rate rose to a record 52.5%. In key areas of crime such as burglary in flats and houses, car thefts as well as pocket and trick thefts, which as forms of crime have a significant impact on people's feeling of security, the number of reports is falling significantly.

In addition, or a decreasing is internationally by an increasing willingness to report unreported cases considered, especially in violence against women . It can therefore be assumed that overall crime will decline even more than can be seen from police statistics.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Federal Criminal Police Office (Austria): The police crime statistics 2018. Retrieved on January 4, 2020 .
  2. Manuel Eisner : Modernity Strikes Back? A Historical Perspective on the Latest Increase in Interpersonal Violence (1960–1990). Pp. 289f , accessed on September 18, 2019 (English).
  3. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Global Study on Homicide. Booklet 1. Executive Summary . Vienna 2019, p. 7 (English, unodc.org ).
  4. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Global Study on Homicide. Retrieved January 4, 2020 .
  5. Michael Tonry: Why Crime Rates Are Falling Throughout the Western World . In: Crime & Justice . tape 43 , no. 1 , 2014, p. 6 , doi : 10.1086 / 678181 (English, alternative full text access : scholarship.law.umn.edu ).