Violent crime “provoking enormous sense of insecurity”
On yet another day when tabloid pages highlight another violent death in one of Portugal’s metropolitan areas, figures have been published showing crime generally has reached its highest level for the last 10 years.
Compared with figures for 2022, the tally in 2023 saw an 8% increase, translating into a total of 371,995 crimes.
The annual statistical highlight, published on the DGPJ website (general directorate for justice policy) shows that the number of crimes recorded by police in 2023 was 28,150 more than in 2022 (when there were 343,845 crimes).
One has to go back to 2013 to find a year with more crimes (376,403). In fact, it was only in 2020 – a year marked by pandemic lockdowns – that the number of crimes fell below 300,000 (298,787).
The DGPJ say that crimes against property accounted for around 51.0% of the total (189,657 crimes), followed by crimes against people, which accounted for around 24.4% of the total (90,840 crimes) and crimes against life in society, which accounted for 11.9% of the total (44,439 crimes).
According to the Ministry of Justice, only crimes (reported) against pets did not rise in 2023 compared to 2022, from 2,022 to 1,729.
The type of crime that rose the most last year was crimes against the State (up 16.9%), from 6,559 in 2022 to 7,713 in 2023, writes Lusa, followed by crimes against cultural identity/personal integrity (up 9.6%), which totaled 367, compared to 289 in 2022.
The justice statistics also reveal that crimes against people increased by 5.8%, while crimes against property rose by 7.6%. The police recorded 424 more crimes against life in society, for a total of 44,439 in 2023, Lusa continues.
The most frequent crimes in 2023 were “domestic violence against spouses or similar” (26,041), followed by driving under the influence of alcohol (24,133), offenses against physical integrity (24,111), motor vehicle theft (20,180), computer and communications fraud (20,259), threats and coercion (16,676) and driving without a legal licence (15,579).
The other most recorded crimes were theft of opportunity/unguarded objects (11,234), abuse of a guarantee card or payment card, device or data (10,386), theft from a commercial or industrial building without breaking and entering or false keys (8,279), theft from a residence, breaking and entering or false keys (8,237) and theft from a motor vehicle (8,189).
Lusa’s report couched the creeping reality in terms that do not instantly jump out at one: crimes against cultural identity/personal integrity; crimes against life in society; crimes against people; offences against physical integrity. It takes a tabloid journalist to put these terms into perspective: they mean non-domestic violence is increasing – something up till now so alien to Portuguese culture.
Just this weekend, a man was violently stabbed in the stomach and leg as he got off a bus in Portela, Loures (on the Lisbon outskirts) at 2.30am. There were no witnesses. He was found, face down, already dead. He had been robbed. His wallet and identity documents were not found, “just a few coins beside the body”.
Correio da Manhã’s executive director Paulo João Santos writes that the situation is yet another that this new government will have to deal with: “the increase in violent crime that provokes an enormous sense of insecurity among citizens”.
It was a subject “ignored during the electoral campaign by all parties, but it is at the forefront of people’s concerns, troubled by what they are hearing. This week has been a good example of the urgent necessity for action. It began with the arrest of two ‘hitmen’ hired by drug trafficking networks to kill four people in a settling of scores over business that had gone pear shaped”. These alleged assassins actually ‘failed’ in three of their four missions, but are cited for one murder and three attempted murders.
“A second news item (in the last week) concerned the death of a young man in Porto, shot five times, in the street, in broad daylight, for the same motive.
“In February in Oeiras, another young man was executed at the entrance to an apartment block – and both the first and last case, military weapons were used.
“Attacks with knives take place every day, and there have been various episodes recently in which shots are fired from passing vehicles into groups that have gathered for a night out.
“None of this is normal, much less in a country of gentle habits, but which are on the way out”, Santos concedes. “Drug trafficking is possibly the principal problem, but there are others – like the breakdown of family values, as violence in the schools has shown.
“Whatever the causes, we need to put the brakes on, otherwise we will lose control of the situation”.
Source material: LUSA/ Correio da Manhã
