Fraud increased significantly during the pandemic.
An Garda Síochána has released provisional crime data for the first half of 2022, detailing the levels of crime across the country over the past six month.
While fraud has decreased by 2% since 2021, the crime increased significantly over the Covid pandemic.
Account Takeover Fraud has increased by 128%, accomodation fraud has gone up by 58%, and most notably, bogus tradesmen fraud has increased by 81%.
Domestic violence reports has increased by 13% in comparison with the first half of 2021.
Sexual offences have increased since early 2015, with reported instances of rape increasing by 23% since 2021.
Child pornography offences have decreased by a quarter since 2019.
Murder has increased by 7%, and assault causing harm has increased by 34%.
Demanding the payment of debt increased by 280% since pre-pandemic levels, with harassment, stalking, and threats increasing by 17% in the same timeframe.
Theft from a person increased by 164% since 2021, but still down by 46% since 2019.
Residential burglary increased by 33%, but remains lower than 2019 levels by 38%.
During the first half of 2021, almost 23,400 road traffic collisions were reported to An Garda Síochána.
Fatal traffic collisions increased by 62% since 2021, and by 30% since 2019.
Over 4,000 drivers were arrested for driving while intoxicated in the first six months of the year.
“As part of the appeal over the June Bank Holiday weekend, 817 MIT checkpoints were carried out by Gardaí, which led to the arrest of 182 people for drink and drug driving, and the detection of close to 3,000 speeding offences,” Commissioner Harris wrote in the report.
Traffic collisions which lead to injury increased since 2021, but still remain lower than 2019 levels.
Theft of vehicles have seen a significant increase, with an increase of 77% since 2021 and 10% since 2019.
As of 30 June, Gardaí have seized upwards of €37 million in drugs.
They’ve also seized over €2 million in cash, and five firearms.
Public order offences, including trespassing and criminal damage, have plateaued since mid-2018, seeing a slight decrease since pre-covid levels.
Gardaí said that current 2022 data and 2021 should be considered in the context of Level 5 restrictions, which had a significant effect on crime.
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