Prague, June 29 (CTK) – State attorneys charged 84,327 people in the Czech Republic in 2015, which is 12 percent less than the year before, and courts found 94 percent of the defendants guilty, according to an annual report that the Supreme State Attorney’s Office (NSZ) has released.
The decrease is connected with a lower crime rate, mainly in the case of thefts, robberies and child maintenance dodging.
According to the statistics, criminal activities have become more sophisticated and more and more of them are committed on the Internet.
The NSZ data show that state attorneys proceeded 85 percent of all penal cases in two weeks after receiving the files from the police, which is a 4-percent decrease compared to 2014.
Courts acquitted 5.7 percent of defendants of charges on average last year, which reflects mainly the work of district state attorneys. In the cases supervised by high state attorney’s offices, 17.7 percent of defendants were acquitted and in those dealt with by the regional attorney’s offices, one in ten was acquitted.
According the annual report, the street, traditional crime has dropped, while the cyber crime is on the rise.
“The Internet provides a relative anonymity for perpetrators to violate the law, either attacking accounts through the Internet banking or abusing information from social networks or running fraudulent e-shops,” NSZ spokesman Petr Maly said.
However, the Internet is also used by stalkers and perpetrators of sexually motivated crimes and those motivated by hatred.
“By using electronic communication means and technologies, damage can be caused to a high number of persons,” the NSZ report says.
The number of property crimes as well as credit frauds has decreased. Moreover, violent crimes have not been on the rise either. However, the NSZ data do not mean a general decrease in crime, bus rather that its character has changed.
Apart from individuals, state attorneys charged 192 firms, for instance, in connection with serious economic, financial and property crimes, in 2015.
It has become more and more complicated to punish economic and tax delicts as it requires high professional skills of the police and state attorneys and their cooperation with the tax authorities, Maly said.
The NSZ report also points out that the migrant wave, which hit Europe last year, did not cause a rising number of people-smuggling cases in the Czech Republic.
