Robbery, extortion and hijacking offences jump by 26%, figures show

The number of incidents of robbery, extortion and hijacking offences increased by 26%, from 531 to 2,601 in the last year, new figures show.

This was driven mostly by a rise in incidents of blackmail or extortion and robbery from the person offences, figures from the Central Statistics Office shows.

The figures, released on Monday, also reveal that theft and related offences were up by 12% or 8,169 to 74,144 incidents in the last quarter of 2023.

Nearly half of this was due to a rise in theft from shops, the data shows.

There were also small increases in recorded crime incidents relating to weapons and explosives offences, which were up by 5%; damage to property and the environment increased by 3%; and burglary and related offences rose by 1%.

The number of recorded incidents of controlled drug offences virtually remained unchanged over the year.

By contrast, incidents of homicide and related offences were down by 19% from 80 to 65 incidents over the same period.

This was due mostly to a fall in incidents of murder.

All other crime categories fell over the year with the highest rates of decrease being for sexual offences, which fell by 11%.

Public order and other social code offences dropped by 8% and dangerous or negligent acts fell by 7%.

The number of recorded crime incidents of fraud and deception offences fell by 3% to 11,292 over the year.

The number of recorded incidents of burglary offences fell from 16,750 in 2019 to 10,884 in 2020 and then to 8,584 such incidents in 2021, which coincided with Covid-19 public health restrictions in place at the time.

As restrictions were lifted, the number of incidents then rose to 9,465 in 2022.

Last year, there were 9,545 incidents, but this was 43% less than the levels recorded in 2019.

The number of incidents of fraud and deception offences in 2023 at 11,292 was 43% more than the 7,921 incidents in 2019.

The number of recorded crime incidents for this category more than doubled between 2019 and 2021 to 17,124 before falling back to 11,689 in 2022.

The number of crime incidents fell across all four Garda regions for three of the 14 offence groups between 2022 and 2023.

These included sexual offences, public order and other social code offences and offences against Government, justice procedures and organisation of crime.

In a further three offence groups, the number of crime incidents rose across Garda regions and these were robbery, extortion and hijacking offences, theft and related offence and weapons and explosives.

The experience across regions was mixed for the remaining offence groups.

Victims of attempt and threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences during the fourth quarter of 2023 fell by 4% from the same period in 2022.

The number of male victims was down by 4% while female victims decreased by 3%.

Assessing the profile of victims by age and sex, there was a mixed experience for male victims of different age groups.

There were decreases in the number of victims under 18 years of age, which fell by 14%, and those between 45-59 years, which dropped by 8%, and 18-29 years, which dropped by 4%.

However, the number of victims aged 60 or more rose by 5% while those aged 30-44 went up by 1%.

The number of female victims of assault fell across all age groups, except those aged 60 or more.

The number of female victims aged 60 or above increased by 12%, while the highest rate of decrease was for those under 18 years of age, at 11%.

For all other age groups, the rate of decrease was between 2% and 3%.