On April 25, the general assembly of the Debrecen municipality accepted the 2023 public safety report of the police.
– According to the report, the indicators have deteriorated somewhat compared to 2022, despite this, Debrecen is one of the safest big cities in Hungary. The question is why the usual favorable trend of recent years has reversed. Even if otherwise, compared to the 2,825 registered crimes in 2023, 5,147 occurred in 2016, said László Papp in his introduction. The mayor indicated that he is aware that the deterioration of living conditions and the reduction of real wages will affect public safety. We help the police work with more and more public cameras and proper command of public area inspectors, but the question is, how can we help the authorities even more? he asked Attila Uzonyi, the police captain of Debrecen.
In his answer, the colonel highlighted: the increasing number of crimes committed online plays a significant role in the deterioration of criminal statistics. Thus, there is a lot of telephone bank fraud and scams committed during internet purchases. Apart from these, according to the police chief, there is no significant change in the number of crimes committed in public areas.
Cyber detectives in Debrecen as well
In response to a question from Viktor Papp (Fidesz-KDNP), Attila Uzonyi said that the number of foreign criminals decreased by 10 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year.
Zsolt Zoárd Gondola (Civil Forum Debrecen) stated that regarding the possible arrival of the Chinese police, he inquired about the subject at the ORFK, but did not receive a straight answer (Cívishír article HERE).
The bank card of Csaba Papp (Fidesz-KDNP) was also “emptied” by phone fraudsters, the representative immediately turned to the police, thanks to which he got his money back a few weeks later.
According to István Madarasi (MSZP), it is impossible to ignore the increase in thefts, behind which he sees a general decrease in the standard of living. At the same time, despite the government’s propaganda, it seems that there is no need to fear foreigners, he added.
László Mándi (Momentum) asked the city administration to do more to curb burglary, while Imre Vaszkó (DK) blamed the administration for the deteriorating data.
László Papp responded to the comments by saying that public areas are monitored with 247 cameras and new ones are being installed, which also applies to traffic boxes (such structures may appear on Vezér utca and Tócópart utca).
Brigadier General József Gyurosovics, county police chief, reminded: while 10-15 years ago, more than twenty thousand crimes became known in Debrecen every year, in recent years this number has been reduced to less than three thousand. He underlined that in terms of reducing the number of crimes, they are at the “psychological limit” under the current set of conditions. He also noted that it is only possible to draw misleading conclusions about the reality from statistical changes, so he cautioned against anyone attaching excessive importance to the numbers alone. Regarding online crime cases, he noted , a national cyber investigation group of 300 people is being set up, 5 investigators in Hajdú-Bihar will only deal with this criminal area in the future. Brigadier General Zsolt Zoárd did not comment on the merits of the words of Zsolt Zoárd (it is true, he is not competent in the case), but reminded: Hungarian-Romanian police cooperation has been continuous and successful for years.
RaL
