The murder rate has not been changed in 2018 compared to 2017 and the facts of robbery as well as inflicting intentional health injuries have been significantly reduced – by almost 18 %, - Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze said during his speech in Parliament on Friday.

“For us the main things are : truth, responsibility, quality control and accountability. From the very beginning I would like to say - your claim that there is a catastrophic situation in terms of the growth of crime in the country does not correspond to reality. Under our authority, we began to carry out fundamental reforms, which since 2012 is underway consistently, including in all those departments that are responsible for preventing, investigating, supervising and punishing of crimes. We have totally changed the attitude and approach to statistical accounting, it has become more specific, accurate and transparent, ”said PM Bakhtadze.

According to him, since 2018, the methodology of statistical accounting of crime has changed and a new approach has been introduced.

“This is a much more important attitude the government to control and describe any fact as accurately as possible, regardless of whether there are all clearly expressed signs of a crime or not. The truth is that since 2012, under our authority, openness and transparency has become one of the priorities of the law enforcement system. The approach to the accounting of crimes has radically changed and it has come closer to the international standard. The aforementioned circumstances led to the fact that the 54 percent increase in crime in 2018 compared to 2017 is mostly linked with the increase in the accuracy of accounting, and not unambiguously with the worsening of the crime situation, ” PM Bakhtadze said.