The report published by the federal Austrian ministry of the interior shows that in 2016 there was a rise of 3.84% in the total number of crimes in comparison with the previous year. Specifically, 537,792 penal infractions were recorded, a figure which means an increase of 19,923 crimes overall.

An aspect of this figure which is not to be overlooked is that concerning violent crime, which last year involved an imperceptible 0.4%, but this year has risen from 40,333 to 43,098, figures which reflect a rise of 6.9%. An interesting fact is that only 36.7% of the victims of these crimes did not know their aggressors.

The other area which is mainly responsible for this changing trend is cybercrime, which has increased by 30% compared with the previous year, from 10,010 to 13,103 cases. Furthermore, this increase has meant a drop in the rate at which these cases are solved, which is 18%.

Finally, the other area which has recorded a noteworthy rise in crime is economic crime, which has seen a rise of 10.9% in comparison with the previous year (from 48,601 to 53,905). In the field of fraud and scams, internet has increasingly become a venue for crime, as 2,199 more were recorded by using this method than the previous year (a rise of 29.42%).

The two areas which show a positive trend, unlike the general one, are burglaries and vehicle theft. In the first case, this consolidates a downward trend which began the year before (9.4% less than in 2014) and is now as high as 16.4%: 12,975 burglaries, 40% of which were attempted and 60% were carried out. These are the lowest figures in ten years. As far as the theft of vehicles is concerned, the downward trend dates back to the start of the decade and now involves 2,994 cases, with a 10% reduction in comparison with the previous year. Of these thefts, 1,511 mopeds were stolen, 197 involved trucks and 1,376 cars.

Most of the people detained in relation with these crimes were Austrian (60.9%), while the other most frequently detained nationalities were Romanian (11.021), German (9.724) and Serbian (9.557). Regarding people who are seeking asylum, the number of people detained has also increased by 54%.

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