THE LATEST CRIME statistics published by the CSO have shown that the number of homicide offences have dropped significantly while fraud and deception increased.
The statistics show how the number of homicide and related offences recorded for 2019 is lower than for 2018 by 30. However, the CSO warned that “care should be taken when interpreting this fall, as the more recent figure may rise as investigations into fatal road traffic collisions conclude”.
The CSO also advised that the statistics are categorised as Under Reservation. This means that the quality of these statistics do not meet the standards required of official statistics published by the CSO.
The CSO first suspended the publication of crime statistics in 2014 following the Garda Inspectorate report identifying quality issues in relation to the recording of data on the internal garda Pulse system. The Pulse system is the only source of recorded crime data available to the CSO to produce these statistics.
Homicide, drugs and attempted murder stats all increase
The number of incidents of murder and manslaughter fell from 47 in 2018 to 39 in 2019.
The number of fraud, deception and related offences recorded by gardaí rose to 7,944 in 2019, an increase of 26.2% compared to 2018.
Controlled drug offences rose by 17.3% to a total of 21,475 offences.
The stats showed an increase of 684 incidents classified as possession of drugs for sale or supply and an increase of 2,304 incidents classified as possession of drugs for personal use.
Attempted murder cases increased by 11 to 25 in 2019, while threats to kill also jumped by 205 compared to 2018 with a total of 1,269 cases reported last year.
The stats also showed what was described as a substantial increase in the number of recorded incidents of drug driving. The number increased by 736 to a total of 1,252 for the year. This was more than double the previous year’s figure. Incidents of drink driving fell by 474 over the same period.
Cases of rape increased by 23, meaning there were 807 reported cases in 2019. Cases of defilement of a child also increased from 173 to 185.
The full range of stats can be found here.
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