06. 12. 11. - 16:10

Vienna suffers high public transport pickpocketing activity

More than eight in 10 cases of pickpocketing on public transport happen in Vienna, according to latest figures.

Crime records reveal that 82 per cent of all incidents of theft in public transport vehicles like tramways and buses that happened in Austria between January and September took place in the capital. Trams, buses and underground trains are especially pickpocketing hotspots at rush hour.

Die Presse reports today (Tues) that police in Vienna do not have data on the number of thefts in the individual U-Bahn and bus lines. However, certain parts of the U1 and U3 line as well as the U6 U-Bahn service were identified by the newspaper as risk areas for pickpocketing. The Viennese daily also writes about high theft numbers on line 6 and line 18 trams.

A spokesman for Viennese police said today officials decided to increase the number of police officers on patrol on Saturdays in the run-up to Christmas when streets and shopping centres would be especially crowded.

Reports from today have it that the overall number of pickpocketing incidents on public transport dropped by 11.6 per cent across Austria from the first nine months of 2010 to the same period of 2011. Vienna recorded a decline of 11.4 per cent.

The number of all kinds of crimes registered in Vienna declined by 3.5 per cent from the first three quarters of last year to the same time span of the current year when 148,485 incidents were reported. Police in the city managed to solve 34.7 per cent of felonies, up by 4.3 per cent. The number of break-ins into flats remained almost unchanged at around 5,700.

Police also said that 1,267 cars were stolen between January and September. This is a decrease of 3.1 per cent, they explained. Officials added that the number of motorcycle thefts dropped as well to 518 cases (minus 23 per cent). Viennese police solved 11 of the 29 bank robberies that took place in the first nine months of 2011. Thirty-one cases occurred in the same time span of 2010.

Federal police said in October that almost 398,800 crimes were reported to officials in the first nine months of 2011. They said this was an increase of 0.8 per cent. Seven provinces recorded more felonies as only Vienna and Carinthia were affected less than in the first three quarters of 2010. Police managed to solve 43 per cent of felonies that took place across the country. This is an improvement of 2.5 per cent.

Federal authorities stressed that there had been an increase of 6.1 per cent of bodily harm offences in the first nine months of the year. The number of murders and attempted murders rose as well, according to statistics. Internet crime incidents are more common too, police said, adding that the number of burglaries jumped from the first nine months of 2010 to the same period in 2011.