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Austria Incidence of Crime
The Austrian police recorded 400,000 cases of criminal
conduct during 1988; some 79,000 were defined as crimes, an
increase of nearly 10 percent over 1987. The number of
misdemeanors--321,000--represented an increase of less than 1
percent. By far the largest category of crimes consisted of
offenses involving property (74,343). Only 283 crimes against
life and limb were recorded, and 1,167 moral offenses of a
criminal nature were recorded. Among misdemeanors, offenses
against property totaled over 202,000, and offenses against life
and limb totaled nearly 80,000. The police reported that 4,963
persons were accused of narcotic offenses and that fifty
kilograms of heroin, 215 kilograms of marijuana, and fourteen
kilograms of cocaine had been seized. In the battle against the
drug trade, Austria maintains contact with drug authorities in
the United States and Canada as well as with authorities in other
European countries and coordinates its enforcement efforts
through the International Criminal Police Organization
(Interpol). There is considerable evidence that international
drug dealers are taking advantage of Austria's laws on banking
anonymity to launder drug receipts. New restrictions were
announced in early 1992 that require the identity of customers
for all transactions above S200,000 and for all currencies, not
just for dollars as had previously been the case.
Responding to an Interpol questionnaire on the kinds of
infractions recorded, Austria reported the following offenses in
1988: homicides, 139; sexual crimes, 2,834, of which 336 were
rapes; serious assaults, 120; all categories of theft, 189,794;
armed or violent robbery, 2,317; and fraud, 19,904. Of those
arrested, 11.0 percent were women, and 4.5 percent were juveniles
between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. Noncitizens accounted
for 15 to 20 percent of most criminal acts but were responsible
for 23.5 percent of armed or violent robberies and 36 percent of
counterfeiting cases.
The police reported that nearly 95 percent of crimes and
misdemeanors involving threats to life and limb had been
successfully resolved. Only 25 percent of thefts of all
categories were solved; arrests occurred in 71 percent of sex
offenses.
Data as of December 1993
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