Annual Crime Brief 2017 has declared that crime has gone down from last year in Singapore after data revealed only 32,773 cases have been reported, which is around one percent lower than 33,099 cases in 2016.
Crimes have been categorised into two sections: Violent/Serious Property Crimes and Theft and Related Crimes.
The first category has decreased by 12.4% to 218 cases in 2017, from 249 cases in 2016. Moreover, robberies have declined by 26.0% to 71 cases in 2017, from 96 cases in 2016.
On the other hand, theft and related crimes decreased by 4.4% to 13,495 cases in 2017, from 14,122 cases in 2016. Experts attribute the decrease to continuous crime prevention efforts by police. They have significantly increased the number of patrol in malls and crowded places during peak periods.
However, The Lion city has witnessed an increase in internet love scam cases. Such cases have increased by 29.9% to 825 cases in 2017, from 635 cases in 2016. Moreover, according to the reports, the total amount cheated increased by 54.2% to about $37 million in 2017 from about $24 million in 2016.
This is mainly because experts say, people are trusting people they meet online and are willing to transfer money to them.
Very recently, a married woman has been jailed for laundering money from her company after she was tricked by a man whom she met online.
When the woman named Loke Pui Ling, 44, found that her online boyfriend Sean was supposedly facing some financial difficulties, she illegally took more than $42,000 from her employer and sent some of the money to Nigeria and deposited the remaining amount to different bank accounts.
Police arrested the woman, who also has two children and has been given 16 months of imprisonment by District Judge Samuel Chua on Monday, January 29.
On February 2, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that Singapore continued to be a safe and secure place to live in, going by the considerable decline in crime rate in 2017.
In a statement on Thursday, Feb 1, citing the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2017 Safe Cities Index, the ministry reiterated that Singapore was ranked the world's second-safest city after Tokyo in terms of personal security and safety. Singapore scored 89.54 compared to Tokyo's 89.80 in the index and its rank has remained unchanged since 2015.
