During the debates on the 2026 state budget draft of Armenia at the joint meeting of the standing committees of the National Assembly on Monday, Minister of Internal Affairs Arpine Sargsyan addressed the work carried out to maintain public order and ensure public safety in the country.

According to her, the increase in registered cases has mainly been due to the detection of crimes considered more latent, in particular, illegal drug trafficking (increase by 391 cases), illegal circulation of weapons and military supplies (increase by 249 cases), and others.

Notably, during the reporting period, the share of serious and especially serious crimes in the total number of crimes committed in Armenia has decreased by 0.7 percent. Of the registered cases, 85.7 percent were minor and medium-severity crimes posing low public danger.

Also, the effectiveness of solving registered crimes in Armenia has increased, and the number of persons involved as defendants has risen by 3.5 percent, for especially serious crimes by 9.9 percent, and for serious crimes by 5.8 percent.

“Over a nine-month period, the overwhelming majority of registered murder cases were domestic in nature. I note that, in recent years, murder cases have not shown sharp or dangerous growth rates, and overall, they make up only 0.2 percent of the total crime structure,” the Armenian interior minister said.

Arpine Sargsyan emphasized that crimes against persons, especially those accompanied by violence, are concerning, and a clear policy is needed in this area. Studies show that, in most cases, the causes of such crimes are related to individuals’ health, educational, and social problems, which have been addressed in the Strategic Program for Crime Prevention being developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia.

"This strategy has a clear focus also on crimes against humanity, especially crimes accompanied by violence. And accordingly, we plan to summarize this strategy by the end of the year and come up with a new methodology within the framework of crime prevention," the Armenian minister of internal affairs noted.