Crime grew 18.8% last year compared to 2021, an increase that reached 33.9% in reported violations, according to the latest report released this Friday by the Ministry of the Interior.
If compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic, criminal offenses increased by 5.7% in 2022, while penetrative sexual assaults, which amounted to 2,870, increased by 53.2%.
The Ministry emphasizes the upward trend that continues in crimes against sexual freedom (17,389 criminal offenses last year including rapes compared to 13,545 cases the year before the pandemic).
An increase that, according to the Interior, “should be related, in part, to the active policies to raise awareness and reduce social tolerance towards this type of crime, which translates into a greater willingness of victims to denounce and reduces the levels of underreporting existing in these criminal types”.
The 2022 crime balance figures the number of criminal offenses recorded by the security forces at 2,325,358, which places the crime rate in Spain at 48.8 known criminal acts per thousand inhabitants, an index far from 79, 5 from the United Kingdom, from 74.8 from Belgium, from 60.7 from Germany or from 53.9 from Denmark.
For the first time, the report includes the evolution of cybercrime. Thus, in the past year, 375,506 crimes of this type were registered, 22.9% more than in 2021 (when there were still restrictions on mobility due to covid-19) and a 72% increase over 2019, the reference year. before the pandemic.
And in this section, computer scams -a total of 336,778- were the ones that rose the most, with an increase of 26.1 percent compared to 2021 and 75.1 percent over 2019.
Interior wants to offer more complete information in line with the real evolution of crime in Spain, “affected by the growing penetration and use of the Internet for some years now.”
This “has caused a strong transition in the criminal reality between conventional or traditional crime (83.9 percent of the total), which is decreasing (1.6 percent compared to 2019), and the new forms of crime committed in cyberspace, cybercrime, which maintains an upward trend”.
The statistics collect the data provided by the National Police, the Civil Guard, the regional security forces and various local bodies.
Last year there were fewer robberies than before the pandemic, with a global decrease of 9.1 percent in robberies with violence and intimidation, at homes, vehicle thefts and thefts. However, they all grow if compared to 2021. As do drug trafficking crimes (14.4% over 2019 and 3.8 over 2021).
But Interior links this increase to the actions of the police in specific devices such as the Special Security Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar, since very few complaints are made of drug trafficking.
Regarding completed homicides, last year 325 were registered compared to 293 the previous year and 331 in 2019.
Likewise, the security forces were aware of 26,422 crimes of injuries and fights, around 30 percent more than in the two years with which it is compared.
Interior also refers to the templates of the National Police and the Civil Guard, which have increased since 2018 by 12,463 troops to 154,535.
This “strong” recovery of police forces has allowed, according to the Ministry, “to reinforce all the specialized operational areas and citizen security of the National Police and the Civil Guard”, as in the prevention and fight against gender violence (a 48.5 percent increase) or the fight against terrorism (4.6% more).
In addition, the budgetary effort in investment in security stands out, which reached 0.59% of GDP while in 2017 it was 0.51%.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
