The Estonian budgetary strategy for the next four years approved by the government says that the level of crime and the number of unnatural deaths must decline significantly in the coming few years.
Estonia aiming to cut number of crimes, unnatural deaths
29th April 2013, 18:20
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The strategy calls for reducing the number of deaths from unnatural causes to no more than 428 in 2017 from 625 in 2012. Unnatural deaths include deaths by fire, deaths as a result of a road accident, deaths by drowning, attacks ending in the death of a person, drug deaths, suicides, and deaths as a result of a work related accident.
In addition to the period covered by the budget strategy the strategy for unnatural deaths sets a goal also for a longer term, saying that in 2020 no more than 385 people should die from unnatural causes per year. The targets for the years in between are 508 for 2014, 480 for 2015, 453 for 2016 and 428 for 2017.
Last year, the number of unnatural deaths was smaller by 6.72 percent than in 2011. The number of fire deaths dropped by 19, of traffic deaths by 14, of deaths as a result of an attack by eight, of drowning deaths by eight, of deaths as a result of a work related accident by five, and of suicide deaths by 19 in comparison with 2011.
The number of drug deaths meanwhile grew by 28 -- from 132 in 2011 to 160 last year, marking the highest figure of all time. That made drug deaths second only to deaths as a result of suicide, which numbered 199.
The strategy calls for reducing the number of criminal offenses to fewer than 40,000 in 2014, compared with 40,816 registered offenses last year. The number has to be smaller than 39,000 in 2015 and 2016, and smaller than 38,000 in 2017 and 2018.