The crime rate in Moscow continues to decline, city police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev said. Police registered 173,000 crimes in 2011, a decrease of 6.6 percent from 2010. The number of registered grave and very grave crimes decreased by 10.4 percent. The number of murders, crimes involving severe harm to people's health and death, robberies, assaults, and thefts is also steadily going down, Itar-Tass reported. Police have shifted the focus from numbers to quality and crime solution, Kolokoltsev said. "Last year, 2,400 crimes from previous periods were solved. This is 40 percent more than in 2010, including grave and very grave crimes by one-third," he added. "Twenty-one of 40 attacks on cash collectors were solved, and 49 persons were detained. The number of thefts from cars in Moscow dropped by 16 percent from 552 to 452. Twenty-nine criminal groups consisting of 90 people were detained," he said.
