Did you file a complaint with the police via the Internet?
Most likely the case will be closed.
The police data received by "Israel Hayom" reveal that if you filed an online complaint, it is most likely to be closed or shelved.
During 2022 there was a 27% increase in the number of complaints filed through the police website.
More than half of them - for property crimes.
The days of closures in the age of the Corona have accelerated the police to allow citizens to communicate with them via cell phone or computer.
Instead of citizens being forced to come to the police station, wait for a police officer to fill in the details of the complaint and be dependent on the police manpower status which is known to be not at its peak - every citizen has been given the opportunity to submit the complaint from his personal computer or mobile phone and at a time that suits him.
However, data that reached "Israel Today" and are revealed here for the first time, show that complaints opened via the Internet were closed at significantly higher rates than complaints filed at the police station.
Commissioner Shabtai. A 27% increase in the number of complaints filed through the police website. Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
For example, in 2021 a total of 21,432 online complaints were submitted through the police website - 91% of which have already been shelved or are in the process of being closed.
In other words, only one out of every ten complaints filed through the network matures into a criminal investigation or indictment.
For comparison, the rate of complaints that were opened at the police station during 2021 and were closed or shelved is 85%.
This trend also continued in the first 11 months of 2022, during which there was a 27% increase in the number of complaints submitted online.
Thus, during this period, 74% of the online complaints submitted since the beginning of the year have already been closed or shelved, while the proportion of complaints in the same period that were submitted offline and were shelved or are in the process of being closed is only 69%.
The data also shows that about 55% of the online complaints opened during the last three years concern offenses against property, 28% of them deal with offenses related to the violation of public order and only 8% are complaints filed for physical offenses.
On the other hand, of the complaints filed at the police stations during that period, 50% deal with property crimes, 35% concern crimes against public order, and 21% are related to physical crimes.
Attorney Reli Avisher Reva, photo: Orli Rosenblatt
According to Attorney Reli Avisher Reva, an expert in criminal law: "The progress is to be welcomed, but the impression is that the police have not yet gotten used to handling complaints that are submitted via the Internet.
These are thousands of complaints that, if they had been submitted at the police station and not on the Internet, would probably have been handled differently."
The police stated in response: "The rate of complaints filed online has increased in recent years and this year stands at about 20% of all complaints filed. On the other hand, it can be clearly seen from the data that over the years there has been a downward trend in the rate of backlogged cases filed online, a decrease of about 20% compared to 2020. Most of the offenses filed as part of an online complaint are minor offenses, for which no indictment is usually filed, or property offenses for which the perpetrator is unknown."
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