ENG-2002 — Page 372

PUBLIC ORDER

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Police Force

The Hong Kong Police Force is responsible for protecting the public, preventing and detecting crime, maintaining law and order, ensuring smooth traffic operations and reducing the number of accidents as well as cracking down on illegal immigration.

At December 31, the Police Force had a strength of about 27 700 police officers supported by some 5 600 civilian staff and reinforced by some 4 400 volunteers serving in the Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Force.

During the year, the Police Force placed great emphasis on the fight against local and transnational organised crimes. This was fully reflected by its hosting of the first Transnational Organised Crime Conference from March 18 to 21, a conference that significantly enhanced the effectiveness of the force's international cooperation (See later section on Transnational Organised Crime Conference).

On the home front, the Police Force strove to maintain law and order, which remained stable during the year. Policing priorities for 2002 centred on the fight against violent crime, triad activities and abuse of psychotropic drugs.

The force's continued crackdown on dangerous drugs resulted in the arrest of 9 413 persons. In addition, as many as 3 100 persons were arrested following a series of anti-triad operations throughout the year.

The Police Force continued to implement its 'Three Year Strategic Action Plan' which sets out the focus of police work from 2002 to 2004.

Crime

Reported crimes in 2002 totalled 75 877, an increase of 3.9 per cent compared with 73 008 crimes recorded in 2001. The crime rate stood at 1 118 cases per 100 000 population, a rise of 3 per cent compared with 1 085.6 cases in 2001. Despite the slight increase, the rate is still one of the lowest in the past 29 years (the fourth lowest since 1974). Nevertheless, the Police Force is vigilant in maintaining law and order to ensure that the HKSAR remains one of the most stable and secure cities in the world. Violent crimes including murder, wounding, serious assault, rape, indecent assault, kidnapping, blackmail, criminal intimidation, robbery and arson - increased to 14 140 cases. Compared with 13 551 in 2001, the number of violent crimes rose by 4.3 per cent. Robbery, wounding and serious assault accounted for 73.1 per cent of the total number of violent crimes in 2002.

Altogether, there were 3 493 cases of robbery in 2002, an increase of 10.3 per cent. compared with 3 167 cases in 2001. There were four cases of robbery with genuine firearms, compared with three in 2001. Bank robbery cases dropped significantly from 54 in 2001 to 34 in 2002. Most of the bank robberies were perpetrated by lone culprits without the use of serious violence.

Regarding non-violent crimes, burglary (excluding aggravated burglary) decreased from 8 637 cases in 2001 to 8 202 in 2002, a drop of 5 per cent. Serious narcotics offences decreased from 2 473 in 2001 to 2 243 in 2002, a drop of 9.3 per cent. Theft increased from 29 542 cases in 2001 to 32 025 in 2002, an increase of 8.4 per cent, and deception rose from 4 051 cases to 4 656 over the same period, a rise of 14.9 per cent. Of the 75 877 crimes in 2002, 42.7 per cent or 32 423 crimes were detected, with 39 665 people arrested for various criminal offences. Of those arrested, 5 335 were juveniles (aged seven to 15) and 6 027 were young persons (aged 16 to 20). Most of the