Felonies down 9 pct for first half of 2015, police say

The number of felonies in the first half of this year has decreased by 8.8 percent compared to the same period in 2014. This decrease was the strongest in so-called high impact crimes - crimes that affect citizens' sense of security the most, such as burglaries, robberies, muggings and violent crimes. This is according tot he police's interim results, which were released on Monday. In the first half of 2015, the police registered a total of 465,050 crimes, compared to 509,917 in the first six months of last year. In the high impact crimes category, the largest decrease was seen in the number of muggings, with a decrease of 19.1 percent. The number of burglaries also decreased significantly with 14.5 percent. The police once again did not manage to meet its norm of responding to 90 percent of emergency calls within 15 minutes, only doing so in 86 percent of the cases. This reaction time is measured from the moment the phone is picked up to the point when the patrol car arrives at the scene. Reaction times for the first half of 2015 is exactly the same as for the first half of 2014.