The delegate of the Government in Cantabria, Ainoa Quiñones, stressed that Cantabria “remains the eighth safest Autonomous Community”, with a crime rate of 40.5 crimes per 1,000 inhabitants, which is “8.5 points less than the national average”, but “can be improved”, for this, she held a meeting on Wednesday with the commanders of the National Police and the Civil Guard.
Quiñones has asked the State Security Forces and Corps in Cantabria to “increase efforts” to tackle crime as a whole and especially “the new forms of crime”, such as cybercrime, which already accounts for 20.3% of the crimes known in our Autonomous Community.
This has been pointed out this Wednesday in the meeting, in which the superior chief of police, Carmen Martínez, and the colonel of the Civil Guard, Antonio Orantos, have participated, and in which the security situation in Cantabria has been analyzed based on the data derived from the Crime Balance of the whole of the year 2022 and published recently by the Ministry of the Interior.
Quiñones has thanked the “rigorous, discreet, responsible and effective” work carried out by the agents of the National Police and the Civil Guard in Cantabria to “deal with those who break the laws and commit crimes in our towns and cities” and also for the “proximity” with which the 1,761 agents of both bodies in the region carry out their work.
“If the 1,761 officers of the National Police and the Civil Guard operating in Cantabria have anything, it is a huge commitment to public service and an unsurpassed spirit of dedication to guarantee our security, social peace and the coexistence of all,” he said.
At this point, he pointed out that at the moment “we have 128 agents in Cantabria more than four years ago”, an increase of 7.2%, and it is “thanks to this Government of Spain, which has been clear from the beginning of its mandate that the replacement and increase of the staff of the Police and the Civil Guard was an indispensable and unavoidable commitment”.
Regarding the Crime Balance, the delegate pointed out that the data “raise the need to continue working, to increase efforts to address, among other issues, the new forms of crime, such as cybercrime, which has increased in Cantabria by 27.4% since 2021 and 130.9% since 2019”.
“This forces the FCSE to adapt, to explore new forms of investigation to arrest those who use these new methods to commit crimes, which in 2022 of the more than 23,000 violations committed in Cantabria, at least 20% were computer scams and cybercrimes,” he said.
In another order of issues, Quiñones has expressed the “concern” of the Delegation and the State Security Forces and Bodies about the increase in sexual crimes, 21.7% more than in 2021, and especially those of aggression with penetration, 47% more.
“The only positive thing is that we denote an increase in complaints, a loss of the fear of victims to report and that is always positive because it is the way to go to end sexual violence,” said the delegate.
Another of the topics addressed at the meeting was the situation of gender violence in Cantabria. Quiñones thanked “everyone for their commitment to continue strengthening prevention and awareness programs and protocols.” At the end of 2022, there were 983 cases of gender-based violence active in the VioGen System in Cantabria, of which 20 were underage women.