The good news for Alicante Province is that the crime rate is down but it seems that it is still too high .Well any crime is a bad thing .The Spanish Police Confederation has said that the crime rate has been dropping steadily since 2005 but it was still 20 points above the national average .

The national average in 2008 was 47.6 crimes per 1000 inhabitants but in Alicante Province it is 66 per 1000 inhabitants .This is despite a drop of 6 % in the crime rate overall .The crime rate soared in the boom years of 2001 to 2005 and there has been a steady drop since then .

The Alicante authorities are  disputing the figures and say that the difference is closer to 10 and that it dropped by 14 between 2003 and 2008 .It appears that crime rates in Benidorm have dropped for the fifth year in a row .

The Spanish Police Confederation has also said that the number of immigrants who were deported in 2008 was 1995 people while in 20071t was 1870 .The number of boats arriving carrying illegal immigrants has dropped from 45 in 2007 to just eight in 2008 .