Owino noted a remarkable decrease in the categories of homicide by 40 cases, theft by servants 49 and offences involving police officers by 12 cases respectively/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya Apr 30 – The number of crimes reported to police between January and March this year has increased by 7 percent to 21,263, from 19,815 in 2017, according to the latest quarterly crime report released by the Inspector General of Police.
The National Police Service puts offences committed against persons as the leading type of crime reported with 339 cases followed possession of dangerous drugs on 332 cases, and cases of stealing at 214 cases.
“This is does not mean you have become more insecure, it depends on the levels of crime reported, Some crimes are social in nature for example when you talk about offences against persons such as murder, suicide, rape; are they offences that require you to be followed by police or is it something that requires socio-psychological treatment to enable you realised that it is not fair to do that,” Police Spokesman Charles Owino stated during the unveiling.
Owino commended the police service on the successfully curbing the proliferation of narcotics and other substances into the country noting that: “It is important to clarify that this is positive. The drugs are in most cases detected at the port of entry. This strategy is important in ensuring that access to the dangerous drugs is completely eradicated.”
He attributed the 15 per cent increase in criminal activities in January to the electoral cycle but added that stern measures by law enforcers led to the 8.9 per cent decrease in the February.
“Usually when we have an electioneering year, it is a year that the youth are kept very busy, they get a lot of money from the campaign teams and therefore you find that we experience sometime lesser offences – save for election offences like demonstrations and so on -, but immediately the campaigns stop, then you find that the follow of money amongst the youths who are campaigning goes down, reporting of crime goes up; but then police device ways of dealing with those crimes. That is why you see there is a sharp decline from January to March,”
Other crimes that were frequently reported to the police include incidents of the penal code such as unnatural offences at 41 and offences of procuring abortion has recorded 60 more cases compared to the same period.
Owino noted a remarkable decrease in the categories of homicide by 40 cases, theft by servants 49 and offences involving police officers by 12 cases respectively.
32 police officers lost their lives in the line of duty due to gunshot wounds or grenade attacks while another 28 officers died in accident while suicide accounted for 2 deaths.
The National Police Service its strict enforcement of traffic rules and regulations yielded positive results through the decrease of fatal accidents falling from 744 victims to 609 victims within the same period under review.
41 more cases of theft of motor cycles have been recorded between January and March respectively.
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