Highest clear-up rate in 20 years

Police solved 28 per cent of all crimes investigated in 1997, the highest clear-up rate since 1976. For all law violations the clear-up rate was 40 per cent. Almost 69,000 persons were identified by police as perpetrators in one or more law violations, the second highest number ever registered in one year.

Seventy-six thousand crimes were solved last year out of almost 273,000 crimes investigated, a clear-up rate of 28 per cent. The number of solved cases is 4,000 more than in 1996.

Misdemeanours are not included in the clear-up rate because many such violations are cleared up when detected, for example traffic violations. This category of legal violations has thus a very high clear-up rate, and the amount of such cases is also affected by police priorities.

New statistics
Offences investigated by the police, 1997.
The statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Crime Statistics, which is based on the central police registration system (STRASAK). For more information, contact frants.gundersen@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 45 43.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 35, 1998