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* The number of crimes ascertained stagnated. The Czech police recorded in 1999 426,626 crimes (+0.2%, +696 crimes). Crime development may be caused, in criminologists' opinion, by a whole range of factors: a change in the population structure, higher insurance protection, the willingness or unwillingness of the police to accept reports on crime, injured parties' willingness or unwillingness to report crimes, and intensity of police work in detecting crimes. (J. Buriánek: Public and Crime in the Czech Republic: Development Trends. The same view of crime development can be found for instance in the German report on crime development). There are also problems in connection with the amount of damage from which unlawful conduct against property is judged to be a crime. (From 1st January 1994 when this amount was increased from CZK 1,000 to CZK 2,000 there has not been any change. However, due to the increasing inflation rate more conducts are judged to be crimes.)
* Crime development is substantially influenced by crime in Prague, where 120,166 crimes (+5.3 % +6.096 crimes) were ascertained, which means the highest rise, both percentage and absolute, in total delinquency within the regions in the Czech Republic). Prague accounts for 28% of all crimes ascertained.
* In 1999 there were 415 crimes ascertained for every 10, 000 inhabitants of the Czech Republic ( 414 crimes in 1998). After calculating the incidence of crime per 10,000 inhabitants, Prague accounts for more than double that number of crimes (1,007 crimes, 950 crimes in 1998)
* A positive factor in evaluation police work is a sustained increase in the number of crimes cleared up1) to 193,354 (+ 4.5 %, +8.261 crimes) and the percentage for the detection rate (the ratio of crimes ascertained and crimes cleared up) that reached 45.3 % (in 1998 43.5 %), while the detection rate for crime against property is around 27 %, and the detection rate for violent crime is 80 %, the detection rate for economic and moral crime is more than 90 %.
* The negative trend continued in increasing damage determined and a fall in damage secured. The level of damage determined rose to CZK 35,653,074 thousand (+6.5 %, +CZK 2,178,540 thousand). CZK 21,102,605 thousand (+0.5 %) of the increase to damage determined came from economic crime, which accounts for 59.2 % of the total amount of determined damage, while in terms of the number of crimes ascertained, economic crime accounts for only 10.1 %. For crimes against property, the level of damage amounted to CZK 12,402,469 thousand, accounting for 34.8 % of total crime. Secured damage2) fell to the amount of CZK 267,236 thousand (-15.8 %, - CZK 50,171 thousand).
* The number of crimes ascertained moderately fell in all categories monitored- crimes against property (-2.5 %, -7.898 thousand), moral crimes (-19.2 %, -532 crimes), and crimes of violence (-1,0 %, -236 crimes) with the exception of economic crime where a substantial increase was recorded (+19.1 %, +6.876 crimes)
The proportion of individual kinds of crime to total number of crimes ascertained has not changed significantly. There was a moderate decrease in crimes against property, economic crimes slightly increased, while the share of moral crime and crimes of violence in the total crime are constant.
* There have also been rising trends for unauthorised production and distribution of narcotic and psychotropic substances and poisons (+54.4 %, +2.261 crimes) and infringements of copyrights (+62.7 %, +641 crimes). The police recorded a substantial increase in economic crime, namely back social security and health insurance taxes, from 474 crimes to 2,395 crimes. The increase in the number of crimes ascertained was recorded in the misuse of information in business relations, infringement of rights relating to trademarks, frauds (within both economic crime and crimes against property), insurance and credit fraud, and participation in criminal conspiracy (Sec. 163(a)), thus these crimes have not been latent any more. The decline in the number of ascertained thefts of cars from 1998 continued in the year monitored, and the police also recorded the decreased number in thefts from cars.
* Investigation Bureaux recorded 134,873 (+8 %, +9.950) new offences against the law. One investigator was in charge of 56.5 documents of a case (in 1998 54,8).
* The speed of investigation increased according to both the portion of investigated crimes closed within two months by bringing them to prosecution and to the average length of investigation of one crime per number of days. The average length of crime investigation terminated by a proposal for prosecution (hereinafter as PFP) was shortened from 72 days to 65 days. By the kinds of crime, the largest number of cases finished by PFP within 2 months was: economic crime (73.3 %), crimes against property (70.1 %), and crimes of violence (60.4 %). The average length of examination (from receiving a complaint or from delivering a police proposal to the commencement of the prosecution) extended to 14.7 days (+3,.5 days). The extension of the period is influenced by more documents of a case submitted by the police authorities for investigation without detecting an offender3).
* The quality of investigation evaluated by the portion of cases returned by State Prosecutor's Offices or by courts has proved a good standard on a long-term basis. There has been an improvement in the year monitored by 6.1 % (in 1998 the portion was 6.7 %). The State Prosecutors and courts returned a total of 4,733 cases. The most frequent reasons were formal errors of investigators, gaps in evidence and ordering new expert opinions.