The number of crimes in Poland was 3% lower last year than in 2019. Police recorded just over 745,000 criminal offences (excluding failure to pay child support) in 2020, reports the Rzeczpospolita daily. That is 24,000 fewer than the figure from the previous year.
Experts note that many types of crime – such as robberies, public violence and reported rapes – diminished in part due to restrictions related to the pandemic. However, other offences may have risen because of lockdown – including a 24% increase in murders.
The largest decrease was in the number of instances of affray and battery, which fell by one fifth, to 3,200, in 2020. Robberies were also much less frequent, with 5,300 recorded compared to 6,400 the year before. Misdemeanours also took place less often, including some 5,300 fewer instances of petty theft.
There was, however, a striking rise in murders, 656 of which took place in Poland last year, compared to 531 in 2019 and 538 the year before. The 2020 figure is the highest since 2011, although still well below the peak of 1,325 in 2001.
While the motives and backgrounds for murders in 2020 varied, many were caused by conflicts between family and friends mixed with alcohol consumption, the spokesman for Warsaw police, Sylwester Marczak, told Rzeczpospolita.
The newspaper also quoted a criminologist, Brunon Hołyst, who said that the pandemic restrictions had an effect on the outlet perpetrators found for their negative emotions.
“People were locked up in their homes, spending whole days together, and there were more conflicts, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons for the increase in the number of murders,” says Hołyst.
“The pandemic has generated strong emotional tensions and the releases are violent, impulsive,” added Mariusz Jędrzejko, a sociologist. “The model of social functioning is changing, and people cannot make use of the help of a psychologist or psychiatrist.”
The number of break-ins (74,000) was 3,100 higher than in 2019. This can also be attributed to lockdown restrictions, such as closed nightclubs, according to Jędrzejko. Just over 9,100 cars were stolen in 2020, which was 275 more than a year earlier.
“As a result of the pandemic, the criminal world has lost a significant amount of its income from gambling and sales of narcotics,” Jędrzejko told Rzeczpospolita. “Hence the return to typical criminal offences, whose number had been falling in recent years, such as thefts of cars dismantled for parts.”
Fewer rapes were also recorded in 2020: 1,088, down almost a quarter on the previous year. This was probably in part because events such as discos, concerts and parties could not take place for much of the year, a police source told Rzeczpospolita.
They added, however, that such crimes may still have been taking place at home but gone unreported. During Poland’s first lockdown, NGOs reported a rise in incidents of domestic violence.
The newspaper’s anonymous source also conceded that the police’s limited resources – with 6,000 vacancies as well as the need to check on people in quarantine and patrol street demonstrations – may have had an impact on the number and types of crimes recorded.
“It had an effect. When you’re keeping an eye on protests, it’s hard to keep an eye on thieves,” they told the newspaper.
Main image credit: Adrian Kot/Flickr (under CC BY-ND 2.0
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
