KUALA LUMPUR: Relentless efforts by police and the use of preventive laws has resulted in a significant drop in crime compared to 10 years ago.
Federal Criminal Investigation Department director Comm Datuk Huzir Mohamed said yesterday statistics between 2009 and last year saw two categories, serious crimes and property crimes, fall from 212,678 cases a decade ago to 83,475 cases in 2019.
He said there was an average decline of about 11,000 cases each year.
Serious crimes comprise murder, rape, causing hurt and robbery or gang robbery with or without firearms while property crimes are theft, snatch theft, burglary and vehicle theft.
Huzir said robberies with or without firearms were the biggest contributors of serious crimes, at almost 66% of the total number of cases reported in the category.
He said between 2011 and 2013, robberies rose by 16,000 cases a year.
“Among the reasons behind this steep rise in serious crimes, especially robberies, was due to the repeal of three preventive laws, namely the Emergency Ordinance, Restricted Residence Act and the Internal Security Act during the period,” Huzir said at a press conference in Bukit Aman.
“However, after the Prevention of Crimes Act (Poca) and Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) came into force, such crimes began showing a downward trend between 2014 and 2019.”
Huzir said murder, kidnap and rape cases also declined since 2009.
Police also seized 2,222 firearms over the past 10 years.
He said for the same period, 5,403 murder cases were reported and 281 criminals were gunned down, of which 36 of them were foreigners.
In 2009, there were 183 robberies involving firearms but only 24 of such cases were reported last year, he said.
As for property crimes, Huzir said vehicle theft made up 43%,or 641,981 cases in the category.
He said more than 72%, or 464,446 of vehicle theft reported in the country involved motorcycles.
“On average, 115 motorcycles are reported stolen in the country every day.
“In 2009, 61,394 motorcycles were stolen but last year it was about a third of that, at 22,507.
“Vehicles of other classes that were reported stolen had declined by half in 2019 compared to the previous years from 2009.
“With this, insurance companies saved over RM20 million in vehicle loss claims.”
On house break-ins, he said 38,570 cases were reported in 2009 while 2019 saw only 16,498 cases.
Huzir said Selangor, being a densely populated state, has the highest crime index.
