Established in 1999

Continued from FrontPage of Article

Other Issues

Theft and related Offences

Aided by greater public awareness and vigilance, theft and related offences fell from 22,711 cases to 20,519 cases in 2006. Shop theft, theft from person and other theft were among the offences that witnessed the largest absolute decreases.

Other theft, which are commonly cases where victims left their belongings unattended in public places such as shops, eating places, void decks, schools etc, fell significantly from 7,206 to 6,008 cases. Meanwhile, shop theft dropped, from 5,270 to 4,804 cases and theft from persons, from 1,023 to 797 cases.

Concern arises, however, over the rise in theft and related offences where metal items were stolen in 2006. A total of 1,092 cases of theft of metals were reported in 2006, which was an increase of 566 cases from 2005. Such cases occurred at both public and private premises and common metal items stolen include cables, lightning conductors, raw materials, prayer urns, dry-riser lugs ⁸ , signages, drain covers and doors of cable television over-ground boxes.

Handphone Crime

Crimes where handphones were taken fell from 4,825 to 4,594 cases in 2006. Handphone crimes dropped most notably for cheating and related offences (from 343 to 253 cases), robbery (from 488 to 441 cases) and housebreaking (from 183 to 142 cases). The drop in handphone crimes, may be due, in part, to the enhanced public education on such crimes as well as the implementation of new police initiatives such as the online database of the IMEI numbers of stolen handphones for easy screening. However, handphone crimes remain an area of concern because of the continued high mobile phone penetration rate in Singapore ⁹ .

Youths Arrested For Crime

A total of 3,645 youths were arrested for crime in 2006, as compared to 5,050 in 2005. They accounted for 19% of the total persons arrested. While this is a decrease from the 23% in 2005, it is still higher than the proportion of youths in Singapore.

Foreigners Arrested For Crime

The number of foreigners arrested for crime decreased by 278 persons from 3,036 to 2,758 persons in 2006. They accounted for about 14% of the total persons arrested, same as in 2005. More than half (1,632 persons or 59%) of the foreigners were arrested for theft and related offences, with shop theft accounting for 31% of the offences.

Arrests Made By Police

The number of persons arrested for overall crime decreased by 12%, from 21,970 to 19,273 persons in 2006.

Public-Assisted Arrests ¹⁰ For Selected Major Offences

Similar to past years, members of public contributed to 4 in 10 of total arrests (700 criminals) for murder, rape, outraging of modesty, robbery, housebreaking, motor vehicle theft and snatch theft.

Conclusion

While 2006 saw an improvement of the crime situation, crime prevention is a shared responsibility. The Police would like to remind the public to stay vigilant and adopt crime prevention as a lifestyle to help safeguard lives and properties. A strong Police-community partnership is vital in keeping Singapore safe against the challenges posed by crime. The Police will continue to work closely with the public and community partners on raising crime awareness through public education and outreach efforts.

9 Infocommunications Development Authority (IDA), Singapore listed the handphone penetration rate in Singapore as 101.5% in Nov 2006.

10 Public-assisted arrests refer to cases where the public had provided information, made a citizen’s arrest, or alerted the police to a crime in progress.

^{11 Statistics for 2006 are provisional.}

Source:  www.mha.gov.sg News Release 1 Feb 2007

ABOUT THIS WEB SITE | ADVERTISING WITH US | LISTING WITH US

ePartners  | Press  |  eMail Us | Permissions | Content Contributors

Copyright©   All rights reserved