On November 4th, Mr. Sayat Shirinyan, Head of the Public Affairs Office of the ROA Police Department, publicly issued the findings of a report covering criminal activity in the country over the past nine months. The findings show that during the period in question crime rose by almost 18% when compared with the same period in 2007; jumping from 6,510 registered incidents to 6,825. Mr. Shirinyan claimed that the number of solved cases decreased and credited this to the extremely heavy workload of the Police subsequent to the February Presidential Elections. Mr. Shirinyan told the gathered reporters at the press conference that the crime rise can be attributed to the moves of the Police Department’s new administration not to tolerate the practice of concealing the filing of criminal cases. At the same time he stated that during the second and third quarters the overall picture improved which inspires hope that the yearly crime statistics will be within acceptable parameters.

During the past nine months the number of traffic accidents rose by 13%.