Organised Crime & Crime Prevention - what works? - Scandinavian ...

Andri Ahven, Expert for the Estonian Police Board
Information and Comunications Department
Police Board
Pagari 1, EE-0100 Tallin
e-mail: andri@sisemin.gov.ee
e-mail: andri.ahven@mail.ee
NSfK’s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998
Crime Trends in Estonia
General overview
The number of police-recorded crimes has increased during the late 1980s and early 1990s in
all the Baltic countries. Since 1992, the crime rate has stayed at a relatively high level, mainly
due to a large number of property crimes.
In Estonia, 280 crimes per 10 000 inhabitants were recorded by the police in 1997, which is
the highest level since 1992. The respective figure was 147 in Latvia and 205 in Lithuania.
(These figures are not entirely comparable due to differences in criminal law and registration
practice. In the case of Latvia, the decrease in 1994 is to some extent explained by changes in
the criminal law.)
Figure 1. Total number of police recorded offences against the Criminal Code
Per 10 000 of population
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Estonia
Lithuania
Latvia
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997
In Estonia, 82% of the crimes recorded by the police in 1997 were crimes against property,
10% were cases of hooliganism, 3% were crimes against persons (homicide, assault, rape,
etc). The other types of crime were less represented. Domestic burglaries constituted 16% and
thefts from cars 15% of all recorded crimes. According to the police the most common stolen
objects were audio and video systems, clothes, jewellery and car parts.
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