Joan Collins
CRIME grew by 2.28 percent in the Balearics in 2005 in comparison with 2004, slightly below the Spanish national average of 2.5 percent.
This was largely due to the increase of 10.22 percent of minor offences, in spite of a fall of 3.4 percent in serious criminal activity.
These are the principal findings of the report Review of crime and delinquency in 2005, which the national Government's Delegate to the Balearics, Ramon Socias, presented yesterday, accompanied by the head of police, Elicio Amez and other department heads. In total, 43'660 crimes were committed in the Balearics in 2005.
Among these were 35'512 (some 80 percent) incidents of vandalism against heritage items, which is an increase of 6.02 percent, and 7'810 thefts, an increase of 13.84 percent, while there were 35'703 minor offences which are not considered as crimes. Socias highlighted the increase in complaints about domestic violence, which grew from 1'804 to 2'003 in 2005. This is an increase of 11 percent, a fact which he attributed to the greater social awareness of this type of crime, and said that he considered the results positive. According to Socias, citizen security in the Balearics is good and, in addition, has improved in the most significant aspects, something which he considers the 11 million tourists which come to the islands every year have noticed. Also, he said that the good results in the fall in serious crimes committed are attributable to the rise in the number of police officers during the last two years. As a consequence of this, the number of arrests has risen by 5'14 percent, of which 53.21 were habitual offenders. On the other hand, the Delegate mentioned the fact that almost all the most serious crimes committed in 2005 had been solved, among which murders stood out as a figure which rose by 39.47 percent, although this figure did include other attacks which had not resulted in the death of the victim. However, the rise in minor offences is due, according to Socias, to the type of offences which are attracted by the tourism industry, e.g. card-sharps, pick pockets and sneak thieves. Thefts by these sort of people usually do not amount to more than 400 euros and are therefore not considered crimes.
In his opinion, among the great volume of minor offences there are a growing number of false complaints made by tourists with the object of getting money from their holiday insurance company. Some tourists regard this as normal behaviour, so all police forces are trying to expose bogus complaints and, to this end, are working very closely with the tour operators.
44´000 crimes in the Balearics