The Police Grand-Ducale presented the statistics for 2016 on Thursday 7 April.

The two priorities for the police are break-ins and drugs. The police solved 47% of the cases filed in 2016 (up by 2%). Police count a case as solved if at least one suspect has been identified. The minister for internal security, Etienne Schneider, has stated that this rate is still too low, but is mainly due to international criminals moving easily across international borders. He has announced that Luxembourg will participate in a Europol programme on organised property crime.

Police statistics

Donat Donven, deputy chief of police, has nevertheless warned that these statistics should be read with caution, as they serve mostly to tickle out the trends in criminality.

Property offences represent the majority of cases (22,306)--stolen goods are part of this category. As for break-ins (including attempts), there has been a decrease of -11.2% to 2015. More than a third of the break-ins were just attempts.

There have been eight armed robberies in Luxembourg in 2016, two at a petrol station and six at other commercial establishments.

Car theft has been declining since 2012; in 2016 there were 242 cars stolen.

The category which includes voluntary homicide, battery, domestic violence, rape, indecent exposure, threats and menaces, and resisting or insulting a police officer represents a fifth of all crime (21.4%) and has only slightly decreased.

Drugs

The police recorded 3,981 drugs cases (this includes use, possession and selling) in 2016, which is a decrease of 14.84% compared to 2015. But the number of charges for selling drugs has gone up to 274 (203 in 2015). Police focus more on dealers than on the consumers.