Expert-Grup

Is Police Funding Too Expensive for the Republic of Moldova?

Thursday, 11 January 20186259 views
Is Police Funding Too Expensive for the Republic of Moldova?

Automatically translated summary. The full article is available in Romanian.

On 11 January, the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup” held a press conference on the volume, structure and efficiency of budget spending on the Police in the Republic of Moldova. Study author Iurie Morcotîlo notes that police funding has risen continuously in both nominal and real terms, even during economic crises.

Between 2000 and 2015, public budget spending on the Police grew tenfold in nominal terms, from MDL 155.1 million to MDL 1,514.1 million, and threefold in real terms. As a share of GDP, however, it stayed almost constant at about 1.2–1.4%, comparable to Central and Eastern European countries. The number of police officers is also similar to the regional average: 369 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2014, against 335 in the EU’s Central and Eastern European states.

Despite this, Moldova ranks 78th out of 127 countries in the Global Index of Internal Security and Police, even though it began reforming the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2010. The author blames the slow pace of reform, including in the justice sector. Homicides fell from 11.3 to 6.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants between 2000 and 2016, but less serious crimes increased. After the reform, the homicide rate fell by only 20%, against 26% before it.

View the original article in Romanian