At least one person will go missing every day by 2025 due to increase in mental health problems, statistician Saviour Formosa said this morning.

Renewing his plea for the use of tracking devices to counter the problem, he told a press conference held to unveil the 2014 Crime Malta Annual Crime Review for 2014, Dr Formosa said more than a quarter of the population would be aged between 60 and 70 in the next 10 years, and some 10,000 would have acute dementia.

He said that a pilot project was to be carried out in the coming months to assess the viability of using tracking devices for people at risk of going missing to help mitigate the problems to find these persons.

The police, he said, were often burdened with trying to track down missing persons and one person who had gone missing in Gozo in 2011 had led to some 300 officers and many of his neighbourslook for him for several hours.

He said the project would not be administered by the police but by social partners since this was a wide ranging problem.

The review also highlighted a ten-fold increase in domestic violence since 2007. saying the number of cases reached 1,046 last year.

The report also showed that, in spite of a drop, theft still comprised 58 per cent of all offences.

On the whole, criminality decreased by five per cent, a significant drop after a 13 per cent spike in 2013. Dr Formosa hoped this meant that the figures had reached their peak in 2013, however, he was quick to point out that these were reported offences.

He said the police would have to move to an online platform if they were to keep up with the technological shifts occurring in society.

A virtual police station, he said, would facilitate report filing.

According to the report, bodily harm averaged 1,052 cases per year - three incidents per day, while fraud experienced a 31 per cent decrease over the previous year.

Computer related crime also saw a nine per cent decrease over the previous year.

Drug use offences also went down slightly from 208 in 2013 to 192 in 2014.

Prostitution increased by more than half from 48 to 123 in 2014, pointing towards wider intervention and deterrence exercises.

Threats and public violence tripled from 63 in 2008 to 265 in 2014, up from 185 in 2013.

Violence against public officers declined by 25 per cent last year, a phenomenon that has experienced nationwide awareness on the problem that has been on the rise since 2008.

Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said the number of officers on the streets would be bolstered across the island in the coming years.

He said that, in the coming days, he would be consulting the police to address ways forward, improve services and adapt to contemporary society.

 

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