The number of criminal proceedings initiated against individuals in the Czech Republic fell to 197,000 last year, a drop of roughly 700 year-on-year, according to the annual report from the Prosecutor General’s Office (NSZ) released yesterday.
Of these, some may have been postponed, while others may still be under investigation.
Criminal prosecutions were launched against 70,500 people last year. Prosecutors brought 65,000 people to trial, either by indictment, a motion for punishment or a plea bargain. They also brought over 200 companies to court.
According to NSZ, the structure of criminal activity has not changed much. The development and composition of criminal activity continued to be affected by the tense international situation, especially the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine and, more recently, the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The situation in the area of internal security and public order was fundamentally disrupted by the mass shooting on the Charles University Faculty of Arts last December, which was followed by a wave of hateful comments approving of the attack, said NSZ. However, the office did not publish detailed statistics on this in its report.
“Property crime continues to predominate, with 22% of all cases being theft offences,” said the report. “Nearly 29% of the total number of cases investigated involve traffic crimes. For violent crime, there is a noticeable upward trend in particularly serious crimes. Last year 131 people were prosecuted for the crime of murder. The severity of cases of sexual violence is also increasing.”
The statistics confirm the continued shift of various categories of crime to cyberspace. The sophistication of hacking attacks and various types of fraud are also increasing, according to NSZ.
Other data show that the courts ruled on acquittals in 4.2% of the total number of indictments filed last year. Just over 92% of cases were handled by prosecutors within a month, with the rest taking more than a month.
“The high turnover of police officers, as well as the lack of forensic experts and the delays associated with the preparation of reports, have contributed negatively to the overall length of pre-trial proceedings,” the prosecutors pointed out in the report.
