Poland posts "rapid decline" in crime rate.

Text of report by Polish leading privately-owned centre-left newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza website, on 3 March

January findings confirm a plunge in the crime rate. There are fewer property crimes and violent crimes.

The number of people who fell victim to crime decreased by 40 percent over the past two years (until January 2009). These are the findings of the Polish Crime Survey, a recent comprehensive victimization survey (covering 17,000 people in the whole of Poland -- 1,000 in each voivodship). Randomly chosen respondents were asked whether they had recently fallen victim to crime. Such research projects have been carried out by the police in collaboration with the Institute of Justice (a research center operating under the Ministry of Justice) since 2007.

Surveys confirm that the crime rate has been falling steadily since 2005. According to international police statistics, Poland is trailing behind other countries in Europe: we rank 25th among 36 countries in terms of crime escalation. We rank 19th in homicides among 30 states. With a robbery rate of 77.2 per 100,000 people, we are among …