As opposed to accessing police crime registries of the European Union states surveyed, researchers interviewed thousands of inhabitants (between 1,200 and 5,000) in 18 countries to assess their own personal experiences with crime.

The European Crime and Safety Survey, conducted by a consortium including Gallup and UN agency UNICRI, said the Portuguese capital was the safest, with only one in ten saying they had ever been affected by crime.

The number of crimes against foreign residents/immigrants in Portugal and so-called hate crimes were also revealed as being among the lowest in the EU.

London meanwhile topped the crime league table, with 30 percent of the British capital’s residents saying they had been the victim of theft or burglaries.

Even on a global scale, the survey does not make pleasant reading for Londoners, with both New York and Istanbul said to be safer places to live.

Besides London, other crime hotspots identified by researchers were the Irish Republic, Estonia, Netherlands and Denmark, where “insecurity” rates were all at least 30 percent above the European average.

Greece topped the corruption table, and Athens also topped the list over concerns over burglaries and safety on the streets.

Once more, Portugal revealed marked improvement between 1996 and 2005 in terms of corruption, and is now rated less corrupt than a host of EU countries, including France and Denmark.

However, and on a more negative note, Lisbon was only beaten by Greece regarding the direct experiences residents had had in their area with drug-related problems or trafficking of illegal substances.

Amongst a host of other findings published by researchers, it was found that Portuguese were the least supportive of imprisonment for the recidivist burglar, saying a community service order was the best course of action to take under these circumstances.

Portuguese were also the most responsive to researchers’ advances, with 71.5 percent willing to set aside time to complete a survey.

Researchers had a much tougher task of reaching their sample targets in Spain and Luxembourg, where less than 40 percent accepted an interview.

The study, which was initiated in 2004, found that overall, 15 percent of Europeans had been the victims of crime.

Eight years before, when the last such study was conducted, 21 percent of EU citizens said they had suffered at the hands of criminals.

Despite the generalised fall in crime, three in ten Europeans said they felt unsafe when walking the streets of their cities of residence.

The report also further indicates that owners of bicycles and motorbikes in Portugal were the least unlikely in the EU to find their methods of transport had been stolen.

Pick pocketing and theft of personal items were also lowest in Portugal.

While Portuguese were among the most pessimistic on the possibility of being burgled in the coming year, (coupled to the fact that Portuguese have the fourth highest number of burglar alarms in the EU) reported crime statistics show that Portugal was only second to Estonia for the least number of reported burglaries.

The study was conducted in the 15 “old” EU countries, as well as newer members Poland, Hungary and Estonia.

As reported in the Portugal News