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Crime is on the rise in Lebanon and few officials are blaming the Syrian refugees who are now over 400,000 in Lebanon only. To be honest, I think the blame is first on the Lebanese authorities who were unable to control the borders and did not set up proper areas for the refugees. We’ve been blaming refugees for our own failings for tens of years now without taking any proper measures.

Syria is at war and the thousands of families and individuals fleeing don’t have any money, so don’t expect them to sleep on the streets and starve to death while we go all racist on them. I am not justifying their acts but a lot of people put under these circumstances will revert to crime to provide for their families. I know it’s a huge burden that any government would find difficult to deal with, and I am all for Arab countries donating money to help us out here, but that’s not an excuse for doing nothing at all (Except setting curfew hours for foreign workers).

Here’s a summary of the statistics discussed in the LBC report:

There’s been 1386 reported thefts from January till April 17. They are distributed as follows:
Mount Lebanon 735
North 171
Beirut 206
Bekaa 149
South 125

The number of arrested Lebanese and non-Lebanese during this period is 1049.

Between March 2011 and 18 April 2013, 5444 out of the 32,320 arrested individuals were Syrians.

Out of the 5444 Syrians arrested:
– 122 were arrested for killing
– 1648 for theft and hold up
– 328 for physical assault
– 370 for drugs
– 35 for rape
– 2932 for other reasons. (That’s a big number for other reasons)

Nowadays, Syrian prisoners account for 10% of Prison Roumieh’s total prisoners. Honestly, I think the Lebanese authorities here should make some sort of agreement (Question is with whom though) to send back all the arrested Syrians with a serious crime like killing or rape into Syria or Syrian prisons. Why overcrowd prisons that we can’t even control?

Last but not least, and as I’ve been suggesting numerous times in previous posts, municipalities should be given more power to monitor their own areas in order to reduce the crime rates. This will most definitely reduce crimes in Mount Lebanon for instance.