Interior minister: Crime stats improving, plans to build 9 prisons

Budapest (MTI) – Police work and crime statistics are improving and a project to build nine new prisons will start this year, Sándor Pintér, the interior minister, told parliament’s defence and law enforcement committee on Tuesday.

In 2010, the year the government came into power, 428,000 crimes were registered, he said. By 2015, this statistic had been reduced to 267,000. In parallel, successful police cases rose from 46 percent to 58.6 percent, he added. Further, crimes in public spaces declined from 115,000 in 2010 to 55,000.

On the subject of the migration crisis, Pintér noted that 14,000 illegal migrants had crossed Hungary’s southern border so far this year, and he said the country is upholding Schengen rules and processing applications for asylum.

If lawmakers pass an initiative to broaden the transit zone from 60 metres from the border to 8 kilometres then there will not be any need to set up any new reception centres, since it will be possible to detain illegal entrants within this zone, he said.

Future plans to expand work for prisoners include setting up laundries to serve hospitals, he said.

In connection with prison overcrowding, Pintér announced that 102 billion forints (EUR 325m) would be turned to building nine prisons over the next three years.

The minister also spoke about national security issues and noted planned improvements, including technical developments.

Socialist opposition members of the committee, its deputy chairman Tamás Harangozó and Márta Demeter said that whereas 16,000 migrants had been allowed into Hungary because they had paid for residency bonds, the government has consistently objected to the placement of 1,200 migrants under the European Union’s redistribution scheme. Pintér replied that the question of whom to allow in was a matter of national sovereignty.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters