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On Friday, the director of the Upper Austria State Police, Andreas Pilsl, and Gottfried Mitterlehner, the chief of Upper Austria. Landeskriminalamt presents the police criminal complaint statistics for 2019. The main tenor: compared to 2018, when the historically lowest crime rate since 2009 was recorded, the number of crimes increased again in 2019: 4.7 percent.
A total of 64,779 crimes were reported in the previous year. The senior Austrian executive clarified 38,913 of these. The approval rate was 60.1 percent, one percentage point less than in the previous record year. But: “This is the second highest value we have achieved,” said Pilsl. This results in second place behind Vorarlberg and is the highest clarification rate in the large federal states. This is a clear sign of “the solvency, commitment and high quality” of the Upper Austrian police.
Crime trends have not changed: the proportion of foreign suspects has increased for years. If it was below 20 percent 15 years ago, the ratio has continuously increased: to 34.5 percent.
As in 2018, there were “only” three killings in Upper Austria in the previous year: the double murder of Wullowitz and another bloody event, which the judiciary called deliberate bodily harm that resulted in death. The clearance rate here is 100 percent.
However, in terms of violent crime, there was an overall increase of 5 percent from 9,334 to 9,822 crimes, with a crime rate of 87.1 percent (a slight plus of 0.6 percentage points). The use of knives is “particularly popular” for acts of violence, these weapons were used in 361 crimes.
In line with the trend spanning several years, cyber crime has increased again and, as far as piracy offenses are concerned, clearly: from 368 to 764 reported crimes. However, only about 400 cases occurred in Upper Austria. The Upper Austria State Criminal Police Office has taken over the “lead administration” in Austria and is therefore also responsible for investigating hacker attacks in other federal states.
In contrast, there was a decrease in “classic” property crime. The number of reported home and apartment burglaries was 1020, a 22.8 percent decrease. Pocket theft and cheat decreased by more than 50 percent. In the case of vehicle thefts, on the other hand, there was an increase from 216 to 263 ads.
Due to the crown pandemic, crime statistics for 2020 will be “completely different,” said Pilsl. Already in the months prior to “closing,” the number of ads had dropped by 80 percent.
