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2000 crime stable so far
 D C&S Louis Lau delivers the half-year review |
The crime situation remained stable in the first half of the year despite a 5.4 per cent increase in offences over the same period last year.
In his half-year review on August 2, Director of Crime and Security Louis Lau Chun-sing said while serious crime figures were stable, a rise in lesser offences like thefts accounted for the overall increase.
Some 39,155 crime cases were recorded from January to June, with the half-year crime rate (the number of crimes per 100,000 people) going up 2.8 per cent to 561.4. The detection rate also slightly increased to 41.7 per cent from last year's 41 per cent.
Serious crime increased 1.6 per cent to 4,529, breaking down into a four per cent rise in rapes (to 49 cases), 11.1 per cent in robberies (to 1,838) and 31.8 per cent in homicides (to 29). However, decreases of 7.6 per cent and 17.7 per cent were respectively seen in wounding cases (to 861) and criminal intimidation (to 566).
Some 78 per cent of robberies occurred in public places and 76 per cent involved losses of less than $5,000.
Robberies with pistol-like-objects, and in gold or jewellery shops decreased by six per cent (to 31) and 20 per cent (to four) respectively.
Robberies with genuine firearms and bank robberies remained stable at two cases and 10 cases respectively. But taxi robberies saw a marked increase of 64.4 per cent (to 74).
"Most of these cases were committed in or before April this year. After the detection of nine cases in April with the arrest and prosecution of the offenders, this crime dropped to 12 and seven cases in May and June respectively," Mr Lau said.
Head-bashing robberies rose from 58 cases in the first six months of 1999, to 96 cases in the second half of the year. But the number has fallen back to 66 this year.
"Police have successfully detected 28 of these cases and prosecuted 25 people, with 21 of them convicted. Penalties ranged from a three-month bound over to a jail sentence of six years and 10 months," Mr Lau said.
Increases were recorded in burglaries (1.5 per cent to 4,625 cases), lost vehicles (13.8 per cent to 1,409), shop thefts (19.7 per cent to 3,651), miscellaneous thefts (8.3 per cent to 7,000) and deceptions (19 per cent to 1,953), more than 60 per cent of which were street scams. Complaints against debt-collecting were up 19.7 per cent to 5,301.