More break-ins in Vienna
The number of burglaries in Vienna is on the rise again, according to a report.The daily Kronen Zeitung newspaper cites a secret police document which shows that eight per cent more houses were broken into in the city in the final three months of last year compared to the same time span of 2009.Police in the north-eastern district of Donaustadt where many single-family homes are located recorded 148 burglaries in the final quarter of 2010, according to the paper. Floridsdorf in the north of the federal capital came second with 73 incidents, followed by Liesing (68) in the south and Penzing (50) in the west.Leopoldstadt takes last place in this regard with just three such incidents. The vast majority of the districts populace however live in flats in contrast to many areas on the outskirts of Vienna. Figures for apartment break-ins are not considered by the leaked document which was published today (Weds).Police files reportedly also reveal a 13 per cent decline of car thefts and eight per cent more incidents in which public and private property was damaged.Around 535,700 crimes were reported to police across Austria in 2010, down by 9.4 per cent year on year. Just 41.4 per cent of all cases were solved, according to Federal Crime Office (BK) director Franz Lang. Viennese police have the worst crime-solving success rate of investigators in all nine provinces at 32 per cent. Police in Vorarlberg are doing best in this regard as 57 per cent of reported incidents were solved last year.Fewer than 2,900 single-family houses were broken into across the country in 2010 a 39 per cent decline compared to crime statistics from 2009. The number of break-ins at flats dropped by 18 per cent year on year to around 2,200. Seven in 10 arrested burglars are foreigners, according to Lang.Meanwhile, a German study reveals that every 95th apartment in Vienna gets cleared out by robbers at some point. This rate means the Austrian capital is more affected by burglars than most other cities in German-speaking Europe.