Crime in Armenia According to the Government Program. What is on paper and how it really works.

In February 2019 the National Assembly approved a new government program, which denoted an important role the internal security. Particularly, according to the government program “One of the primary issues in the area of internal security is the continued reduction in crime rates.”

Let’s see how far the government has managed to deliver on its promise based on the program in the first half of this year.

Statistics

According to the data released by the RA Statistical Committee, 12 250 crime cases were registered in Armenia in the first half of this year, which is 9 percent more than the crimes recorded in the same period last year.

Here the number of serious and particularly grave crimes is particularly large,  which, respectively, raised up to 16 and 35.3 percent, compared to the first half of last year. To make it clear what it is all about, this year there have already been 1812 serious and 134 particularly serious crimes cases recorded, whereas in January-June of the previous year there were 1562 and 99 cases respectively.

The most significant increase in crime cases were the number of cases of the theft of state, public and private property. Thus, the number of state and public theft cases recorded in the first half of this year has increased by about 2.5 times. In the same period last year, there were only 30 such crimes recorded.

4779 cases of theft of private property were registered in the first half of this year, which has increased by 32.2 percent compared to the same period last year. Among them, there were quite a few cases of home burglaries – 710 cases. Compared to the first half of last year, this type of crime has increased by 38.7 percent.

In the first half of this year, there were 99 cases of making, keeping or selling counterfeit money or securities, compared to the 75 in the first half of last year.

Abuse of power and authority are also quite common – 165 cases compared to  109 cases in the first half of last year. Giving, receiving and mediating bribery- 190 cases, compared to the previous 159 cases. Road traffic and vehicle operation violations have also increased by more than 24 percent. In the first half of this year, 685 crimes of such kind were recorded, compared to 552 in the same period last year.

The positive dynamics

Despite the increase in the overall number of crimes, some crimes tend to decrease in the first half of this year. In particular, crimes against a  person have decreased significantly. In the first half of this year, there were 2012 such crimes, compared to the 2417 recorded last year. Here, crimes against sexual immunity and sexual freedom have been significantly reduced, in particular rape and rape attempts. In the first half of this year, only 8 such crimes were recorded, compared to the 14 recorded last year.

In the first half of 2019, the number of making firearms, ammunition and illicit traffic (361 cases compared to 445 recorded last year) as well as the number of drug-related crimes (464 cases compared to the previous 512) was also reduced.

Summing it up, we can state that crime in the republic does not tend to decrease. There is a positive shift in only a few points, while some dangerous crime rates have grown at a very high rate. In fact, according to the government program, we should have witnessed a steady decline in crime rates, however, as the statistics show, the reality is different.