Violence in Slovenia 2014–2025: 18,537 crimes against life and bodily integrity
Podcrto.si analysed police data on crimes against life and bodily integrity between 2014 and 2025. Minor injuries account for 85 per cent of all cases.
Police data reveal trends in violence in Slovenia between 2014 and 2025
Podcrto.si has published a new analysis of police data on suspected crimes against life and bodily integrity in Slovenia for the period between 1 January 2014 and 30 November 2025. During this time, police recorded 18,537 such crimes concluded with charges.
The data were obtained directly from police and are based on a crime database in which cases are recorded with the date of the final document — namely a criminal charge or police report. Because proceedings at the time of recording have not been concluded, all cases are suspected crimes.
Decline during the pandemic, followed by renewed increase
The trend in the number of crimes against life and bodily integrity shows a clear pattern: numbers fell during the pandemic in 2020, and have increased again since then. Data for 2025 are incomplete, so it is not possible to draw conclusions about the actual annual volume.
Police responded to Podcrto.si's question by saying that the trend over the past ten years "remains at roughly the same level, with slight fluctuations up or down". "However, a decline was noted during the Covid epidemic, when contact between people decreased and consequently the opportunity to commit violent acts decreased as well," they explained.
Gorazd Meško, head of the Department of Criminology at the Faculty of Security Sciences of the University of Maribor, explained the situation during the pandemic to Podcrto.si: "Findings from a review of police statistics in the first wave of Covid-19 show that much violence moved into private spaces, that alcohol consumption and conflicts in the home environment increased. Much crime also moved to cyberspace — both property crime and violent crime, particularly psychological violence."
Minor injuries predominate
Among fourteen categories of crimes against life and bodily integrity defined by the criminal code and recorded in the police database, minor injuries distinctly predominate — they account for 85 per cent of all handled cases. These are followed by serious bodily injuries at 9 per cent and endangerment with a dangerous object during a fight or quarrel at 3 per cent.
For the purpose of more detailed analysis, Podcrto.si categorised the crimes into four groups: minor bodily injuries, serious and aggravated bodily injuries (combined), murder, manslaughter and spontaneous killing (combined), and other crimes — among the latter are endangerment with a dangerous tool, causing death through negligence, abandonment of a helpless person, failure to help, participation in a fight, incitement to suicide and assisting suicide, creating danger, and infanticide.
Murders surged during the pandemic
The greatest movement in absolute numbers is evident in minor bodily injuries: in 2019 there were 1,479, in 2020 they fell to 1,082, then began to increase again. A similar pattern is seen in serious and aggravated bodily injuries.
The opposite direction is apparent in murder, manslaughter and spontaneous killing: numbers increased from 21 cases in 2019 to 47 cases in 2020 — the highest in the entire analysed period.
Ljubljana and Maribor with most cases
By administrative units, Ljubljana and Maribor stand out as the most populated and the only ones with more than 100,000 inhabitants. In Ljubljana the total number of minor bodily injuries in the analysed period reached 2,428 handled cases, followed by Maribor.
Police statistics do not capture everything
Meško warns of a methodological limitation in police data: "Police statistics mainly tell us about the work of police, not so much about the crimes themselves. Up to 30 per cent of interpersonal violence resulting in bodily injuries is reported, the rest is not — which is data from victimisation studies."
The Podcrto.si analysis is part of a broader series of articles on violent crime in Slovenia with current data. More than a decade ago, the editorial board conducted a similar analysis for the period 2008–2013; the new series brings updated findings with additional methodological approaches.
Source: Google News SI — Crime (sl)