The Devil Never Sleeps

I got the locks changed,
not THAT one in the end.

I'd heard rumours that there was a lot of crime in Hungary. A few months ago in Denmark, my Hungarian friend was laughing at one of the bike locks, "In Hungary that lock wouldn't last five minutes" he joked. He seemed to suggest that anything not bolted to a building or streetlight would be automatically stolen. Also, I have to admit that it didn't actually make me feel particularly safe that I had an iron gate as well as the regular door for my apartment, bars on the windows and a total of 5 locks. I asked one of my colleagues whether it's normal to lock all the doors when you're at home - her reply was "The devil never sleeps". I couldn't help but wonder whether that meant that God was often asleep ... Anyway, admittedly I can't understand the news reports, so maybe lots of crime is reported, which heightens this fear, but I decided to try and find some statistics, so that at least I could compare Budapest to other European cities.

According to a report from 2006 (see 1), I discovered that Hungary has a similar number of police officers (under 300 per 100,000 people) as England, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and a few other countries. In comparison to other European countries it's not that many. Other countries, such as Greece, Portugal, Italy, Russia and Cyprus has many more (over 400 per 100,000 people). But then again, maybe this fact doesn't tell us all that much, how about crime statistics ...

Of course, let's keep in mind that these statistics are just a guide and all kinds of methodological issues can blur the picture, e.g. how often are crimes actually reported and recorded by the police, severity of crimes, differences between laws in different countries, and so on - you get the picture. So, based upon these statistics from 2003, there were less criminal offences (per 100,000 people) in Hungary than lots of other countries. Here are just a few statistics: Hungary 4,110; Denmark 9,013; Ireland 2,634; Poland 3,799; Germany 7,976. Actually, I was surprised to find that Sweden was the highest with 13,995. Does this mean that Sweden is a terribly dangerous place ... mmmm, I doubt that somehow. I've been to Sweden and it's like a blunt wooden spoon, designed for children - there doesn't seem to be anything dangerous about it. So I think we can be a little sceptical about what these statistics tell us.

Okay, so let's move on to something more serious: homicide. So, are there lots of intentional homicides (as opposed to manslaughter, e.g. car accidents) in Hungary? No, is the simple answer. If someone really wants to kill you then, based upon the statistics, they're probably Russian or Scottish. Quite why the Scots (16.2 intentional deaths per 100,000) are so violent I don't really know, but in any case, in Hungary it was only 3.8 per 100,000 according to these statistics. That's actually less than Denmark (4.1), France (3.9), Finland (9.2!!!) and Belgium (8.4!!!). If you're visiting it's rather unlikely you'll be here long enough for someone to want to intentionally kill you (but who knows, maybe you're a very irritating person).

Robbery is another one ... apparently only 33 per 100,000, which isn't all that high when you compare it to Spain (222) and Belgium (248). Remarkably, it appears that you're less likely to get robbed in Romania (12) than in Iceland (13) ... mmmm ... I'm not sure whether we can entirely rely on these statistics. Even Denmark, which I know to be a very safe place, has a higher figure - 59 out of 100,000. So I have to admit that I'm sceptical about these figures.

Finally, burglary - this is the one I'm really interested in, because I want to know whether all those locks are really necessary. Ok, let me just check to see what the figures say ...

... okay, stop. They must have picked these numbers out of a hat. Apparently the lowest level of burglary is in Romania (45 per 100,000) and the highest is in the Netherlands (2,958). Hungary is apparently somewhere just below the middle (470) and similar to Germany (530).

Let me see if I can find some newer, more accurate figures.

Of course, as always these statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt. For instance, I simply don't believe that in Georgia there was 1 rape per 100,000, and I assume that this figure has a lot to do with whether victims actually report it to the police, and whether the police take it seriously. By this count again, Sweden is the most dangerous place (29 per 100,000), however this doesn't take into account that it's probably more often reported in Sweden and that in Sweden the term 'rape' covers a LOT of different things (e.g. consensual sex where the condom breaks).

So, to get back to my initial point, do I really need all those locks on my doors and should I be watching over my shoulder constantly, wondering when the next attack will come from. Sadly, I think the locks on the doors are necessary, but not because burglary is so common, rather because everyone else does it, and so to not do it is just to invite trouble. And as for watching over my shoulder, well, of course you should be a bit careful and not leave things laying around, and don't go walking down any dark alleys late at night in areas you don't know, but on the whole Budapest and Hungary seems to be just as safe as any other large European city - which is nice to know, it means that I can sleep a little easier at night :-)

1) http://europeansourcebook.org/esb3_Full.pdf