Street crimes continue to drop

Police's initiatives against street crime have proved successful, with cases of robbery and pick-pocketing plunging by 9.5 and 30.5 percent last year compared with 2005. In releasing last year's crime statistics to the press today, Macao's Secretary for Security, Mr Cheong Kuoc Va, said the crime situation in the Special Administrative Region remained stable, with total criminal offences having gone 3 percentup to 10,854 cases. Mr Cheong noted that violent crime fell by 5.1 per cent. In particular, arson and robbery cases dropped by 29.2 and 9.5 percent, while homicide, blackmail and drugs trafficking increased by four, one and seven cases respectively. Crimes against people, one of the five major categories of crimes classified in the Penal Code of Macao, rose by 6 percentto 2,519 cases in 2006. Wounding cases increased by 6.9 per cent, while criminal intimidation cases dropped by 4 percent. However, false imprisonment went up by 24 cases in 2006. Crimes against property dropped by 3.7 per cent, with pick-pocketing, robbery and deception cases down by 30.5, 9.5 and 6.4 percentrespectively. On the other hand, criminal damage cases went up 11.3 percent. Blackmail and loan sharking increased by 1 case each. Crimes against society recorded a rise of 36.7 percent, attributed to a 50.8 and 42.9 percentincrease in the use of counterfeit banknotes and forgery cases. Crimes against public order stood at 702 cases, with false declaration cases having fallen by 7.8 per cent. Moreover, other crimes that were not included in the above classifications recorded a slight increase of 4.8 per cent. Drugs trafficking cases went up by 10.9 percent, while drug abuse cases fell by 32 percent. Mr Cheong also noted that the authority repatriated 17,013 illegal immigrants and overstayers in 2006: 1,085 illegal immigrants were from the Mainland. Out of the 11,430 overstayers from the Mainland, 3,398 of them arrived in Macao under the facilitated individual travel scheme. Meanwhile, 1,100 foreigners overstayed their visits in Macao. Juvenile crimes also fell by 9.4 percentwith 224 juveniles having been involved in crime, a drop of 80 people compared with 2005.