Every year, CBOS asks Poles about their sense of security and threats related to crime. What does the research reveal and are the respondents' feelings really correct?
For several years there has been a steady increase in the belief that Poland is a safe country. Nine out of ten respondents have no doubts about it. Even more respondents, as many as 98%, believe that the place where they live can be described as safe and peaceful. Thus the average Pole does not feel threatened by crime and is not afraid of becoming a victim of crime.
However, as many as half of the respondents – especially women – fear that it is not them but their relatives who may fall victim to crime. This belief may result both from lack of personal experience with crime and from comparisons of our country with the situation in other countries. After all, no one in Poland opens fire with a machine gun at school, shoots in the streets, drives into crowds in a truck or plants bombs in the underground. But does this mean that we are really safe?
Every year the police make public statistics on criminal offences. This category includes homicide, rape, fighting and battery, robbery, extortion, theft, robbery, property damage, burglary, and offences causing injury. While homicide and rape are found to be relatively few in number (in 2019 there were 524 and 1354 recorded offences respectively with detection rates of 97.7 and 85.5 per cent), of the other categories a total of over 227,000 offences were recorded last year. Their detection rate is not particularly high either, at 41.3 per cent, although it is comforting to note that this rate is increasing year on year.
Interestingly, as much as one third of criminal offences, i.e. almost 70 thousand, are burglaries. This is a lot, considering that there are 20 times less fights and beatings. In other words, statistically, a burglar enters someone's home every 8 minutes. There is also a significant number of thefts of property, including car thefts, all of which are committed without breaking into a property. There are around 100,000 such crimes every year.
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Although police statistics have been steadily improving in recent years, it would still be unwise to take security lightly. Securing your property and taking care of your own safety is essential. Alarm systems, monitoring, solid fences, anti-burglary roller blinds and gates, anti-burglary doors, good lighting of the property are excellent solutions worth investing in.
For valuables, documents, cash, jewellery and other valuable items stored at home or in a company, the best protection is provided by safes, which are becoming increasingly popular. Combined with other security systems, burglary-certified safes offer a robust security package, preventing potential thieves from accessing the contents within a certain time frame.
It's also worth insuring your home so that you lose as little as possible in the event of a potential break-in. All this protects us well and adds to our security. Especially since burglars usually carefully observe the neighbourhood beforehand, recognising the habits of the inhabitants and identifying weak points. A solidly secured property usually effectively discourages attempted burglaries.
