After regaining independence in 1991, crime has been regarded as one of the most acute problems in Estonian society in the 1990s. The number of police-recorded crimes has substantially increased since the late 1980s, with the level of 2000 being the highest in the whole post-war period. The homicide rate peak level since the late 1940s reached in 1994, and it is considered very high in an international comparison as well. In the late 1990s, the homicide rate decreased again by approximately 50 %.
All these developments, paralleled by persistent media attention devoted to serious violent crimes, have created favourable conditions for widespread fear of crime. It is often assumed by general public that crime situation is deteriorating continuously, and that the probability to become victimised by violent crime in Estonia is much higher than in Western European countries.