Armenia’s crime rate up 14.3 percent in 2021

YEREVAN, January 24. /ARKA/. The number of crimes reported to Armenian law-enforcement bodies in 2021 rose by 14.3% compared to the previous year, according to First Deputy Chief of Armenian Police Aram Hovhannisyan.

Speaking at a meeting of top police officers last weekend he said the total number of reported crimes grew by 3,777 to 30,245 incidents, up from 26,468 incidents reported in 2020. The rise, he said, was driven by a higher number of reported thefts, which grew last year by 1,695 compared to 2020, traffic offenses, which rose by 188, cases of fraud, which upped by 127 as well as by drug-related crimes which were higher by 318.

According to the Police, non-severity and medium severity crimes accounted for 57.7% and 26.4% of all reported crimes respectively.

In particular, homicides, crimes against sexual integrity, thefts, robberies, frauds, computer thefts, thefts of vehicles and traffic violations increased last year. Thus, 368 people were killed and 6,699 were injured as a result of 4,604 traffic accidents reported last year.

At the same time the number of such criminal offenses as intentional cause of harm to health, rapes and attempted rapes, burglaries, embezzlement and hooliganism decreased.

In 2021, 10 cases of human trafficking and 950 cases of corruption crimes (bribery, embezzlement, misappropriation or embezzlement through abuse of official position, fraud, forgery, abuse of official position, etc.) were registered. -0-