The crime rate in Slovakia fell again on an annual basis in 2016, by 5 percent. Moreover, the police’s success rate in clearing up individual crimes improved, the representatives of the Interior Ministry and police told the press on February 6.
A total of 69,635 crimes were registered in Slovakia last year, with the police identifying the offenders in almost 57 percent of cases. Both these figures represented a new best since Slovakia became independent in 1993, said Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák (Smer), as reported by the TASR newswire.
With property crimes, such as thefts, becoming rarer again last year, the police focused more on ‘latent crimes’, such as tax fraud and domestic violence, said Kaliňák.
The crime map did not change much in 2016, with the Bratislava and Košice regions having the highest crime figures. When it came to districts, Trnava and Prešov were the worst off.
One interesting fact is that while the police’s success in identifying the perpetrators of individual crimes in Bratislava stood at a mere 10 percent in the mid-2000s, the figure has improved to 49 percent since, noted the interior minister, as reported by TASR.
As for individual towns and cities, Košice had the highest number of crimes (4,500), ahead of Trnava (3,682). On the other hand, the districts of Svidník (424 crimes) and Stará Ľubovňa (425), both in the Prešov Region, were the safest, said Police Corps President Tibor Gašpar, as reported by TASR.