Balearic crime rate dips but still highest in Spain

PALMA
LAST year, the crime rate in the Balearics stood at 68.9 crimes and infringements of the law for every 1'000 inhabitants. It is the lowest since 2001 although with sexual crimes at their highest level since the beginning of the century, the overall crime rate remains the highest in the country.

A report on regional public safety, released yesterday by Central Government delegate Ramon Socias, revealed that despite the drop in criminality of 6.5 points since 2007, the Balearic crime rate continues to lead other regions of Spain where the average figure is 35.1 crimes for every 1'000 inhabitants. Only in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa were figures higher. Rates on the Canaries were also significant - both groups of Islands have large floating populations.

In 2008, the rate of sex crime in the Balearic Islands stood at 46.4 for every 100'000 inhabitants, an increase on the 43.2 average registered the previous year. It has been steadily on the increase since the year 2000 when the rate stood at 32.5. The rate of sex crime, said Socias, is “alarming” but he added that the positive aspect of the figures reflect people's heightened awareness of their rights to bring perpetrators to justice. Socias said that crime rate would in fact have dropped 9.9 points if it were not for the fact that people who break road safety laws - for example, through drinking and driving - are now registered as having criminal records. Such application of the law came into being in 2008 - in previous years, breaking the highway code in this way was classed as an “infringement of the law” rather than as a crime. Socias said there was no evidence from the report that the economic crisis has so far pushed up the crime rate. He also quoted research showing that “only” 9 percent of people living in the Balearics perceived the Islands as a dangerous place to live. On the mainland meanwhile, people taking part in interviews showed a much lower level of concern over crime in the Islands, down at 2 percent.