“There is a clear manipulation of the numbers and before issuing an opinion, there must be a correction in the analysis of the real numbers”, said the president of the City Council, also calling for “greater social awareness”.

“The statistics are the result of sums and, in the case of Albufeira, which has a population of around 44,000 inhabitants, it records an exponential increase in the so-called high season, reaching around 500,000 people in this municipality. Now, generalising this data, we have the same situation that occurred during the Covid-19 period, when we had more infected people than inhabitants, which was not true”, said the mayor.

José Carlos Rolo rebels against the recurring use of the “Albufeira example” to talk about crime in the country, as occurred on January 7, during the parliamentary debate in the Assembly of the Republic, by one of the deputies.

The matter was the focus of attention from “Polígrafo”, an online journalistic project whose “main objective is to ascertain the truth in the public space”, which validated the deputy’s information as being “true”. “Polígrafo” also says that the “most common crime categories in the municipality according to the INE are, by far, crimes against property (42.5‰), followed by crimes against physical integrity (9.8‰) and driving a vehicle with an alcohol level equal to or greater than 1.2 g/l (7.6‰)”. The same article corroborates its analysis with the website “Criminality in Portugal in 2023”, which, says “Polígrafo”, “reached the same conclusion: Albufeira is the municipality with the highest crime rate: 9.47 crimes for every 100 inhabitants. In this ranking, the rest of the top 5 is made up of Loulé (7.04%), Porto (6.27%), Lisbon (6.17%) and Sines (5.47%).”

José Carlos Rolo believes that “there must be greater social awareness in the issuance of information. In the item on crimes against property, for example, a considerable number concern destroyed rubbish bins, which happens because Albufeira has an internationally renowned nightlife during the high season, with almost half a million tourists over the course of months”. José Carlos Rolo also says that the matter “cannot be used as a partisan propaganda spear” by certain parties that use this information as the basis for posters that have been placed in the region.

The mayor added that “between the meaning of the word and the mental image that the word ‘crime’ suggests, there is no room for trash cans on the ground or a bent traffic sign. The word criminality suggests brutality, violence and barbarity on our streets. This does not happen. Every now and then, there is an episode of violence, similar to what can happen in any location.”

The mayor believes that the good use of language should also involve greater specificity in terms of statistics, recalling the scale of “minor crime, serious crime and crime”, expressions that can help to avoid creating “this discomfort for the people of Albufeira, who know the reality of the municipality and who take these recurring statements as a lack of rigor and respect for the entire community”.