Four times more crime in Oslo than New York

[Marcus Marulus]

Four times more crime in Oslo than New York


Oslo police at work during a demonstration.
PHOTO: MORTEN HOLM

The crime rate in Oslo has been growing at an alarming rate and recent statistics show the Norwegian capital had 20 percent more robberies last year than in 2006.

While crime in the rest of Norway has been going down, it has been quite another situation in Oslo, where personal and automobile thefts increased markedly last year.

There were 10,600 crimes reported in public places in 2007, up from 8,000 a year earlier, writes Norwegian daily newspaper Dagbladet.

Oslo had the highest rate per person in Scandinavia in terms of reported crimes, with 90 reported crimes per 1,000.
Copenhagen had 50 crimes reported per 1,000 and Stockholm had 79.

In New York, there were 22 reported crimes per 1,000 inhabitants.

This means there were four times as many reported crimes per person in Oslo as in New York.

The Oslo police are blaming the increase on an influx of East Europeans, and Minister of Justice Knut Storberget is reportedly partly in agreement.

However, Storberget said it is necessary to be careful drawing parallels with such statistics. "But regardless, we can say the crime figures in Oslo are too high," he was reported to have said.

NTB/Aftenposten English Web Desk

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