Overall and serious crime dropped in the first six months
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The law and order situation in the first six months of 2008 remained stable with a drop in the overall crime and violent crime figures, according to the Police Director of Crime and Security, Mr Lee Ka-chiu.

Speaking at a press conference today (July 30) to review the crime situation in the territory between January and June this year, Mr Lee said, "During the period, a total of 38,777 cases were recorded, representing a drop of 3.9 per cent over the 40,357 cases in the first half of last year.

There was a total of 7,095 cases of violent crime recorded in the last six months, a 3.7 per cent decrease when compared with 7,364 cases in the corresponding period last year.

Based on the number of cases, Mr Lee pointed out that the top four categories of violent crimes were serious assault (2,938 cases), followed by criminal intimidation (951 cases), wounding (891 cases) and indecent assault (683 cases).

"The total number of serious assault and wounding cases in the first six months this year was 3,829, down 2.5 per cent when compared with the same period last year," said Mr Lee, adding that one of the main reasons for the reduction in the total number of these cases was due to the decrease of cases relating to domestic violence with criminal elements.

Majority of assault and wounding cases were incurred by various kind of disputes. Meanwhile, domestic violence cases accounted for 18 per cent, while those related to triad societies accounted for nearly 8 per cent.

With respect to criminal intimidation cases, a total of 951 cases were recorded in the first six months of this year, a decrease of 40 cases (down 4 per cent) compared with the corresponding period of last year. Majority of these cases were induced by disputes of different sorts.

"Among disputes of all sorts, money disputes accounted for nearly 20 per cent, love disputes had equal share of about 20 per cent, disputes involving domestic violence 27 per cent, debt disputes 20 per cent and triad related disputes about 3 per cent" he added.

Regarding indecent assault cases, a total of 683 cases had been noted over the first six months of this year, a slight increase of 14 cases when compared with the corresponding period of last year.

Mr Lee said that apart from the top four categories of violent crimes, there was a significant increase of homicide cases. A total of 21 homicide cases were recorded in the first six months of this year, an increase of 13 cases when compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.

Mr Lee said that Police attached great importance to homicide cases. Among the 21 cases, 18 cases were detected and the detection rate was 85.7 per cent.

Mr Lee also pointed out that the number of robbery cases dropped by 108 (down 16 per cent) to 550 cases in the first six months. The number of robbery with genuine firearms is zero.

He said that during the first half of this year, a total of 1,215 cases related to triad offences were recorded, a rise of 17 per cent. Triad society cases accounted for 3.1 per cent of the overall crime rate, a downward trend since the climax of 3.9 per cent in 1997. Over the past six months, Police had mounted a number of intelligence-led and undercover operations against targeted triad personalities and activities.

Regarding the fight against trafficking and abuse of dangerous drugs, Mr Lee said over the past six months, a total of 1,494 serious narcotics cases were detected and 1,850 persons were arrested for serious narcotics offences, an increase of 6 and 5 per cent respectively when compared with the same period last year.

"Cases involving psychotropic drugs increased by 21 per cent, with Ketamine and Cocaine having gone up by 75 per cent and 21 per cent respectively," he said.

In respect of youth drug abuse, a total of 557 youth and juvenile offenders were arrested for serious narcotics offences in the first six months of this year, a rise of 38 per cent of the people arrested in the same period last year. Among the youth and juvenile offenders, over 90 per cent were involved in psychotropic drugs.

In the first half of 2008, the number of overall domestic violence reports the Police had recorded was 3,557 cases, a drop of 145 cases (down 3.9 per cent) compared with 3,702 cases in the same period last year. Of the 3,557 reports in the past six months, 1,147 cases involved criminal elements while 2,410 reports were non-crime cases.

"The law and order situation in the first six months of 2008 was quite stable and we anticipated that the situation for the second half of this year would be more or less the same. Our strategies in tackling criminal offences will remain unchanged," Mr Lee concluded.

Add Police Report No. 5
Issued by PPRB

End/Wednesday, July 30, 2008
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