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Swedish cities suffer high crime rates

14 December 2010 19:29 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Official figures have revealed high crime rates in the Swedish metropolises, with the capital city of Stockholm ranking first on the crime list, APA reports quoting Press TV.

According to the statistics released by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 1,377,000 offenses were reported to the authorities of the country, home to nine million individuals, in 2008.

These figures could be translated into 14,900 offences per every 100,000 citizens.

The 2009 data revealed that the country’s crime rate stands at 15,046 for every 100,000 people. Stockholm, Malmo and Gothenburg rank first to third in terms of crime rate with 23,648, 21,382 and 18,728 per 100,000 citizens respectively.

The number of violent and deadly crimes has increased by about 200 percent from 1976 to 2006, the report showed. Only in 2009, five deadly shootings occurred in Malmo, compared to four in Stockholm and eight in Gothenburg.

The main types of crimes reported include theft, vandalism and destruction, traffic crimes (not including minor incidents), fraud, narcotics and rape. This is while many of the crimes are believed to go unreported.

According to published studies, only 22 percent of the victims report the offense to the authorities. A study conducted on 2,000 individuals, similarly, showed that only about 50 percent of street muggings are reported to the police.

The rate of reported violent crimes has gradually increased over the past decades. In Malmo, for instance, the number has risen from 593 per 100,000 in 1989 to 866 in 1999 and to 1,197 in 2009.

Ultranationalist political parties attribute the high crime rate in Sweden to foreign immigrants and have launched anti-immigration campaigns in the country.

Sweden began to record national crime statistics in 1960. In 1964, the number reached 368,000, and between 1975 and 1990, it rose by 61 percent.