Crime reports drop again

Reported crime dropped by nearly 13 per cent last year compared to 2008, the fourth successive decline from one year to the next. The number of reported cases has now fallen by just over 35 per cent since 2005.

The police received 11,939 crime reports in 2009, a drop of 1,750 from the previous year, when 13,688 reports were filed.

The number of crime reports between 2000 and 2005 amounted to more than 105,000 but since then the figure has fallen constantly from year to year. The 18,461 crime reports filed in 2005 dropped to 16,542 in 2006 and again to 14,991 in 2007.

District 1, which comprises Valletta, Floriana and the port area, registered the largest drop, with 32 per cent or 364 fewer reports in 2009 compared to 2008.

It was followed by District 3, Paola, Luqa, Santa Luċija and Tarxien, at 26 per cent or 308 fewer reports.

Predictably, the district which includes St Julians, Paceville, Pembroke, Ibraġġ and San Ġwann received the largest number of reports - 2,015, although this was down from the 2,083 received in 2008.

The Gozo police district registered a 16 per cent drop, with the 2009 figure falling by nearly 100 reports.

A breakdown of the types of crime reported is not yet available as this information is still being compiled by the police.

Contacted by The Times, Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici lauded the police corps for its hard work which yielded the positive results.

He said this was a reflection of the number of persons arraigned in court and the current prison population, which stands at one of the highest levels ever recorded.

He said he was certain the figure would go down again this year and promised that the government would continue to give the police the support it needed, noting the investment made recently in the purchase of new motorcycles, a digital photo lab and new DNA digital profiling equipment.

Speaking in Parliament last week, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said there was an incorrect perception that only a small number of cases were punished through imprisonment. On the other hand, statistics showed that 80 per cent of those accused before the criminal courts had been given prison sentences and the number of inmates at Corradino Correctional Facility had increased to 560.

Criminologist Saviour Formosa believes that while it is encouraging to see a situation that depicts declining crime rates, from a criminology point of view, the reasons for such changes, both positive and negative, must be queried.

Dr Formosa is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Malta and the director of CrimeMalta.

On the positive side, he said, the drop could reflect more effective police operational and tactical activities, more new and repeat offenders being incarcerated, higher rehabilitation outcomes, more efficient urban planning which reduced the opportunities for offences, and more alert people who served in neighbourhood schemes.

On the other hand, he said he was concerned about the crimes that went unreported, a figure that was on the rise across the Western affluent states.

Dr Formosa said the main "suspect" for Maltese crime-drops remained that of anomie, where citizens resort less and less to the authorities in terms of reporting crime.

Such statistics will be discussed on April 23 at the National Crime Conference organised by the Malta Criminology Association.