According to the half-yearly report released Thursday by the Ministry of the Interior, the figures for delinquency are on the rise for this first part of the year 2021. This particularly concerns sexual violence, which the ministry explains by better care victims in brigade and police station.
Is crime on the rise?
This is in any case what reveals the figures of the Ministry of the Interior published Thursday for the first half of the year 2021. Starting with sexual violence: this violence increased by 15% in June after an increase of 9 % in May, compared to the same months in 2020. From April to June, this violence increased by 5% compared to the first quarter of 2021, underlines the statistical service of the Ministry of the Interior (SSMSI) in its relative note in the month of June.
200 acts of harassment and assault every day
For this service, this is explained by the freedom of speech and the improvement of the reception of victims in brigade and police station. This is an increase of 34% compared to 2019, with nearly 35,000 incidents of harassment and sexual assault and rape reported to the police in six months, or about 200 per day. In June, he also noted that the number of recorded sexual violence is "much higher than the level before confinement".
Stressing that "the indicators of delinquency have shown very atypical evolutions since March 2020", the SSMSI warns that "the interpretation is proving to be very complex".
"Confinement, he continues, has strongly influenced the conditions for filing complaints (...) certain forms of delinquency cannot be exercised in the context of confinement or curfew while others are reinforced".
Difficulty of comparison
More generally, the figures are difficult to compare with last year, because delinquency has come to a halt with the first confinement. But we can refer to the first two quarters of 2019. Since the beginning of the year, the police and gendarmerie services have recorded more than 200,000 fraud-related offenses in just six months. This is an increase of 14% compared to the same period in 2019. This includes counterfeits in public writing, counterfeit money, but also breaches of trust and in particular scams of fake quality, fake police, fake doctor. The health crisis could have been a springboard for some delinquents with new trafficking.
"With the exception of scams, assault and battery on persons 15 years of age and over, and sexual violence", summarizes the SSMSI, "all indicators remain significantly below their level before the first confinement, while 'in September 2020 the majority of them had found or even exceeded this level ".