Soriano deputy Enzo Malán (FA) expressed concern about the high crime rates in his department, not only in the capital, Mercedes, but also in the rural area and in the city of Dolores. He assured that he almost has to go to court to obtain information.
“They never responded to our requests for reports, so we had to resort to another instrument that is Access to Public Information that by law they have to give us the information,” the Frente Amplista deputy told EL ECO this week.
And delving into the procedures, he said that “we had two or three reiterations of the requests for reports, we made the Access to Public Information and a little before the justice intervened, we were answered,” he said.
In this sense, “not only in Mercedes but in other towns, the neighbors told us about the increase in robberies and different types of crime that contrasted with the speech of the Minister of the Interior that everything was better and crime was going down,” he insisted.
The pandemic and crimes
“It is clear that during the pandemic, crime fell not because there was a wonderful plan in Uruguay, but because it fell all over the world,” he said.
So with the information that they sent him, “I was able to verify two pieces of information: first, all the crimes that one can see, except the rustling that has been going down, the others, have an inflection in 2020 and then some begin to increase, shooting beyond the figures. of 2018 and 2019”, according to data from Soriano.
“We received a response to the request for access to public information requested from the Ministry of the Interior on the evolution of crimes in Soriano. In January we reported that we had appeared before the Public Information Access Unit (UAIP) to denounce the Ministry of the Interior for not providing information on crime statistics in our department, they finally complied.
From the data received, prepared by the National Observatory on Violence and Crime, “it is clear that the crime figures in Soriano have increased. We see it and live it every day, it is palpable when talking with neighbors of the department”.
Complaints for thefts increased 48% in 2022 compared to 2021 and 18% compared to 2019, “while robbery increased by 74% compared to 2021, reaching levels similar to 2019. These are alarming figures, much higher than the total for the country” , said.
domestic violence
The increase in reports of Domestic Violence is chilling, in 2022 they were 12% higher than in 2021 and 24% higher than in 2019. Reports of Sexual Abuse are also alarming, 5% higher in 2022 compared to 2021 and 18% if we compare with 2019.
There is a considerable drop in complaints of rustling.
Nothing more than “the story”
Regarding the Lacalle administration, “the speech that everything was wrong with security and that they came prepared to improve turned out to be just a story,” Malán emphasized. “It is clear that the crimes that fell in 2020 and 2021 were a consequence of the pandemic and not of security policies, now they have skyrocketed again,” he concluded.
