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PROGRAMMES AND PUBLIC VIGILANCE PAY OFF |
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Aided by greater public awareness and
vigilance, overall crime in the first half of 2006 has seen significant
improvement, particularly for crimes such as housebreaking and robbery. |
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However, members of public can help bring
crime levels down even further, especially for crimes that can often be
prevented, such as theft. |
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Overall crime reported in Jan-Jun 2006 fell
by 15% when compared to the same period last year, from 18,489 to 15,756
cases. |
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INDEX CRIMES |
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Rape and Murder up in first half
of 2006 |
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Murder
rose by nine cases, from five to 14 cases in the first half of
2006. All these cases were isolated and unrelated. Twelve out of
the 14 cases were crimes of passion1, committed as a
result of disputes between known parties. All 14 murders have been
solved. |
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Rape increased by
one case, from 55 in Jan¨CJun 2005 to 56 cases in the same period this year.
About 95% of all rape cases this year involved offenders who were known to the
victims. |
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Significant Decline in
Housebreaking and Robbery |
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Housebreaking
registered a significant decrease, from 805 to 551 cases in the
first half of 2006. This could be generally attributed to fewer
break-ins at HDB residences (from 229 to 101 cases), private
residential premises (from 113 to 77 cases) as well as
education/childcare centres (from 55 to 27 cases). |
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The decline in robbery from 598
to 441 cases could mainly be attributed to a decrease in the
number of handphone robberies (from 277 to 195 cases) as well as
the related concerns of robberies involving youth victims (from
176 to 106 cases) and youth culprits (from 127 to 60 cases). |
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Theft remains a concern |
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The number of theft and related
offences2 fell from 11,402 cases to 9,651 cases in the
first half of this year. |
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Other theft, which are commonly cases
where victims left their belongings unattended in public places
such as shops, eating places, void decks, schools etc, decreased
from 3,745 to 2,938 cases. |
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Meanwhile, theft from motor vehicle
dropped from 915 to 613 cases and theft of bicycle fell from 420
to 258 cases. Theft from persons also fell from 467 cases to 306
cases. |
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HANDPHONE CRIME |
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Crimes involving handphones being
stolen, which was one of the key concerns in 2005, decreased
significantly, from 2,423 to 1,962 cases, in the first half of
2006. |
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Handphone crimes dropped notably for
cheating and related offences (from 193 to 89 cases), robbery
(from 277 to 195 cases) and theft from motor vehicle (from 126 to
52 cases). |
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The drop in handphone crimes, despite
the continued high mobile phone penetration rate in Singapore3
, may be in part due to enhanced public education on such crimes
as well as tighter enforcement against errant second-hand
handphone dealers. |
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The implementation of new police
initiatives such as the online database of the IMEI numbers of
stolen handphones for easy screening may also have contributed to
the improved situation. |
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YOUTHS ARRESTED FOR CRIME |
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A total of 1,582 youths were arrested
for crime in the first half of 2006, as compared to 2,412 in the
same period in 2005. They accounted for 18% of the total persons
arrested, a decrease from the 22% in Jan-Jun 2005, but still
higher than the proportion of the youth population in Singapore
(15%). |
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While the three most common offences
for which youths were arrested continued to be shop theft, other
theft and rioting, each of these offences saw significantly fewer
youth arrests in the first half of this year. |
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Youth arrested for shop theft fell
from 719 to 378 persons, while youths arrested for other theft
fell from 441 to 221 persons. The number of youth arrested for
rioting also fell from 212 to 191 persons. |
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ARREST SITUATION |
|
Fewer persons were arrested for
overall crime, from 10,971 to 8,992 persons in the first half of
2006. |
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About 4 in 10 arrests involving
selected major offences4 were made with the assistance
of the public. Police will continue to work with the National
Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), the Inter-Ministry Committee on
Youth Crime (IMYC) and the local grassroots network to engage the
community through various crime prevention programmes in
preventing and containing crime. |
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CONCLUSION |
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Police will continue to work in close
partnership with the community so that they can be our eyes and
ears to ensure that Singapore remains safe. |
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This Police-community partnership is
even more important in this current global security climate where
the whole community of Singapore will need to address challenges
posed by both security and crime. |
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More..... |
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1
Crimes of passion refer to non-premeditated offences that occur in
the heat of the moment arising from immediate instigating factors
such as disputes ranging from money matters, personal/ family
matters, work-related, boy-girl relationship, misunderstanding,
etc.
2
Theft and related offences include, other theft,
theft in dwelling (in hotel and others), shop theft, theft of
bicycle, theft from person, etc and also includes the index crimes
motor vehicle theft and snatch theft.
3
Infocommunications Development Authority (IDA), Singapore listed
the handphone penetration rate in Singapore as 99.3% in May 2006.
4
These major
offences include murder, rape, outraging modesty, robbery,
housebreaking, motor vehicle theft and snatch theft
|
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Source:
www.spf.gov.sg 24 Jul 2006 |
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Notice |
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FrontPage Edition: Mon 24 July 2006
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