YEREVAN. – Opposition Bright Armenia faction member Karen Simonyan on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the National Assembly what the reason is for the increase in the number of crimes in the country.

According to the Prime Minister, this is one of the cases when some abuse the opportunity created by the government. "You know that in 2019, we have introduced a reward system for the police to effectively solve crimes,” Pashinyan said. “And recently there was a case was found out when the head of a police department and some representatives of the staff came to an arrangement with the district criminals that they would go, steal, [and] they [the police] would come, solve that theft, and get a reward for it.”

Pashinyan also presented other issues that may be the reason for the increase in the number of crimes in Armenia.

"Today we have people involved as accused in thefts, who are being released from custody by the court, a precautionary measure of signature bond not to leave [the country] is being chosen, [but] they are committing new thefts during the investigation," he added. "There is also the third [reason], (…) in general, I consider amnesty a very bad tool because in practice, 60-70% of those released by amnesty are caught committing a new crime within the next 1-2 years."

According to the PM, they have already taken an important step, and that is the law on combating criminal subculture. "According to the new Criminal Procedure Code, instead of arrest, we will introduce an electronic bracelet system, which will show the trajectory of a person under precautionary measure."