Safety a non-issue in Morocco’s elections
Crime rates were up by 2 percent last year, but safety isn’t on the agenda of any of the main political parties.
Moroccans are going to the ballot box this year to elect a new parliament. It’s still unsure whether the elections will be in July or in September, and the date is a bit of a hot topic.
The government seems to want an early election, maybe to prevent the islamist party PJD more time to get even more popular than they are today. Polling is restricted in Morocco, but some suggest that the PJD will get as much as half the seats available.
Le Reporter, a Moroccan news weekly, puts the focus on crime and safety and wonders why no political party seems to be bothered by the increase in crime rates. Apparently, those were up 2 percent last year, with thefts and robberies taking the bulk of the increase.
The magazine points to the small numbers of police officers as one of the reasons behind the growing crime problem. And it embarks on quite a familiar call for more police on the streets.
Right now, Le Reporter writes, Morocco has around 40,000 police officers on a total population of 30 million.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime keeps statistics on the number of police officers per 100,000 inhabitants. That number is 141 for Morocco. By comparison, France has 211, Germany 303 and the United States 326.
It’s interesting to see how those numbers relate to the number of recorded crimes, also found in the UN’s statistics.
For every 100,000 Moroccans, a grand total of 967 crimes were recorded in 2002. For the US, that number is 4,118.
The major flaw, of course, in putting the two statistics next to each other is that, maybe, people in Morocco simply don’t report crimes as often as people in the US do. They may be scared of going to the police, or think it won’t make any difference.
We’ll allow that for “white collar crimes” like fraud and bribery - the Moroccan police itself has a reputation for taking (or even demanding) bribes. Reporting a theft may not be worth the hassle, and some rapes may go unreported in Morocco because of the stigma and possible repercussions.
So let’s just look at crimes that are pretty sure to be reported even in Morocco.
In 2002, with almost double the police capacity, the US recorded 84 times the number of cars stolen per 100,000 people, compared to Morocco. The US had 11 times more murders and 9 times more drug offenses than Morocco.
Which is to say that the number of men in blue (or gray, in much of Morocco) is not the only factor in a country’s safety. There’s more to safety than just law enforcement. It’s just a guess, but social cohesion and social control may be a deterrent to crime in Morocco.
Still, Le Reporter has a point when it says that the relatively low numbers of crimes are making policiticians complacent, even when the trend in crime rates is rather worrying.