The association, in partnership with Intercampus, carried out a survey that it had used in 2012 on ‘Crime and Insecurity”, in which it asked people about their “perception of security” relative to their specific residential area and their personal possessions, coupled with their “feeling of security in personal terms” and their “personal experience in the last 12 months”.
The data released on Wednesday indicates “a trend to expressing an increasingly lower level if insecurity on the part of the people in the study, when compared with the results obtained in 2012”, the association said. It was based on 600 interviews carried out between 24 October and 11 November with people aged 15 or over, resident in mainland Portugal.
“It is very positive to see this reduction in the perception of insecurity relative to crime” secretary-general of APAV, Carmen Rasquete, told Lusa News Agency.
She cited as one of the explanations for the shift the fact that there was also less industrial and labour conflict at the moment.
“There are some factors that we can discuss, debate and even thing about, one of them I think is one of the clearest [that] has to do with a climate of more optimism, of greater security, of economic growth,” Rasquete said.
She recalled that in 2012 the country was in the middle of an economic crisis and “there was very much the feeling of negativity, of pessimism about the future, not only in matters of criminality but in personal questions” relating to “insecurity about the future and [people’s] own lives.”
The survey shows that just 10percent of those questioned see the area where they live as dangerous of unsafe, against 19percent in 2012. Of those who do, 55percent say this perception of insecurity is greater at night.
The results also show that more than 75 percent of those questioned do not fear being robbed or attacked (the figure in 2012 was 58 percent). The figures also show that the proportion of those questioned who fear that their home might be burgled fell to 34percent, from 52percent five years ago.