Abstract
This chapter presents the sociopolitical events and crimes recorded by the police in Slovenia during the Covid-19 pandemic alongside the influences these issues have had on society. It presents an overview of the measures and restrictions adopted by the Slovenian government, with a greater focus on policies introduced during the first wave of the epidemic. Social responses to the newly formed government, taken measures, and the impact of the consequences on various social groups are presented and discussed. Police crime statistics for 2020 are analysed and compared with those from 2019. The chapter then provides more detail on certain types of crime, showing the amount of recorded crime and police response. The findings show that most recorded crimes in 2020 decreased. They also indicate the need for additional self-report and victimisation studies, as well as studies on the opinions of police officers regarding tackling crime and the imposed measures.
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Notes
- 1.
Nacionalni inštitut za javno zdravje (NIJZ) (The National Institute of Public Health)
- 2.
The expression epidemic has been used in all official documents concerning Slovenia regarding crisis management measures. Thus, the word will be used in this paper whenever the COVID-19 situation in Slovenia is described. The expression ‘pandemic’ will be used when referring to the international context.
- 3.
This measure taken was to protect the most vulnerable age group so that any contact with other people would pose less of a risk to their health.
- 4.
To mitigate the impact on tourism caused by the closure of borders and strict measures, the government decided to assist tourist providers by introducing tourist vouchers. Every inhabitant of Slovenia could redeem these vouchers at providers of tourist services or B&Bs in Slovenia. The vouchers aimed to encourage residents to vacation at home and not go on holiday to Croatia or other countries (Finančna uprava RS).
- 5.
It follows the open-source app Corona-Warn-App (CWA) developed by Germany, ensuring complete transparency (Bock et al., 2020).
- 6.
Later, in the second wave, the government went so far as to provide mitigating circumstances to those residents who had the app on their mobile device (these residents could cross borders between municipalities, but residents without the app could not), which was unfair to those who could not download the app due to the system, brand, or model of their mobile device, to those who did not wish to have it, or to those who simply did not own a mobile device. The police could fine residents who crossed the borders between municipalities without the app, with fines of 400–4000€ (Cerar 2020).
- 7.
The government decided to impose measures according to the so-called traffic light system, which includes five phases (black, red, orange, yellow, and green), determining which measures will be implemented at each stage.
- 8.
Those who fall under the conditions of PCT or RVT (preboleli, cepljeni, testirani; transl. Recovered, vaccinated, tested) have even more mitigating circumstances and can enjoy certain ‘privileges’ which others cannot (such as dining inside a restaurant).
- 9.
Criminal offences against property, such as damaging another’s object, larceny, grand larceny, robbery, larceny in the form of robbery, misappropriation, fraud, arseny, etc.
- 10.
Cybercrime means using information and communication technologies to commit criminal, harmful, and immoral acts in cyberspace (Convention on Cybercrime, 2004).
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Meško, G., Kokoravec, I. (2022). COVID-19, Crime and Social Control in Slovenia. In: Siegel, D., Dobryninas, A., Becucci, S. (eds) Covid-19, Society and Crime in Europe. Studies of Organized Crime, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13562-0_5
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