Crime rates in post-revolutionary Egypt soar amid security woes

Crime waves in Egypt have hit new highs since the uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, recently disclosed statistics have found.

According to Egypt’s interior ministry officials, the rate of homicide almost tripled since the 2011 revolution due to a rise in unemployment, which the ministry views as an added obstacle to an already existing economic crisis.

Egyptian Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Osman told the Financial Times on Saturday that the police have been suffering because they inherited “this mess.”

“Since the revolution, state institutions have fallen and aren’t stable anymore, and even the judiciary has taken a step back,” Osman said.

Reported armed robberies increased from 233 in 2010 to 2,807 during last year, according to the FT report, while home invasions also hiked from 7,368 in 2010 to 11,699 in 2012.

Osman said that another problem factor is the rise in weapons inflow to the country.

The minister told the FT that although the country’s crime numbers almost tripled, incidents of rare crimes such as kidnappings for ransom have become rare in recent months.

“In the period when things were really chaotic, people would just pay the [ransom] money because they didn’t have any confidence in the police,” he said.

Despite their rarity, kidnappings for ransom rose from 107 in 2010 to 412 in 2012.

However, human rights activists who spoke to the FT said the police, a force “without modern crime-fighting techniques,” are part of the increased crime equation. The real waves of crime have grown after thousands of criminals were released from jails during the unrest caused by the uprising.