Ninety eight new National Police officers were welcomed to Alicante Province last week .The government sub-delegate spoke at the welcoming ceremony in Alicante and stressed how much the crime figures had been reduced since 2003 and since 2004 more than 1500 new officers had been deployed to the province of which 689 had been National Police officers and the rest had been Guardia Civil .

The National Police chief for Alicante Provnce also spoke to the new officers and told them that they were now in a force with a very high rate of police activity and that there was an expectation for them to perform at the very highest levels .

Thirty two of the officers will serve in Alicante , eight in Alcoy , nineteen in Benidorm , ten to Denia , fourteen to Elche , eight to Elda and seven to Orihuela.

The sub-delegate once again reiterated just how important the increased numbers of officers were to reducing crime in the region , a drop of 14% since 2003 It is now below the average rate for the European Union .