2.1% decrease in criminality in 2019, 10% decrease in last 3 years

Criminality in Malta decreased by 2.1% in 2019 when compared to the previous year, which means that criminality has decreased by 10% in the last three years, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri announced on Friday.

In a virtual press conference – the first of its kind and a direct result of the current situation with regard to the outbreak of COVID-19 – Camilleri noted that with a ratio of 31 cases for every 1,000 people compared to an EU average of 59 cases per 1,000 people, Malta remains one of the safest places in the European Union.

A total of 15,589 reports were made to the Police in 2019 – 87.5% of those reports dealt with theft, damage, domestic violence, infliction of injuries on other persons, and fraud.

There was a 66.5% decrease in pickpocketing across the last three years, with 819 reports of this nature filed in 2019. This however is offset by a 66% increase in the number of thefts from vehicles, a 38% increase in thefts from building sites, and a 4% increase in the number of thefts from residences.

All in all, theft comprises of 42.5% of all offences reported to the Police – up from 41% in 2018.

Reports related to fraud decreased by 20% to 821 cases, while computer-related crimes also decreased by 17%. There were 54% less reports about drug use, along with a 15% decrease in violence to public officials.

Reports of domestic violence slightly decreased from 1,341 cases to 1,326 in 2019 – but of most note here is that stalking offences increased by a significant 61% in this category.

At the other end of the spectrum there was a 25-case increase (equivalent to an increase of 21%) in sexual offences, maintaining a year-on-year increase which has been ongoing since 2015.

Meanwhile there were 36 cases of money laundering in 2019 – a 9% increase over the 33 cases registered in 2018. 17 such cases had been registered in 2017, when money laundering began to be recorded in its own distinct category.

In terms of localities, St Julian’s registered the lowest amount of criminality in the last 15 years, something which Camilleri described as being significant given the level of business in the area and given that certain crimes are associated with such an area.

“Not everything is sunshine and roses; there were some types of crime which increased – some by a little, some by a lot – and the Police Force has an obligation to understand what it needs to do in order to curb this criminality as well,” Camilleri said.

Professor Saviour Formosa – who penned the report – noted that the decrease in criminality has continued in spite of the fact that the potential for criminality has continued to increase. He said that the end result was 5,000 to 6,000 crimes less than what had been expected.

He said that the results registered in the last three years show that there is a decreasing trend line emerging in the level of criminality.

Formosa explained that the results leave the country in a situation where Maltese society has evolved so much that social cohesion becomes key – noting that people’s values need to be strong enough so that if an incident is seen to be happening it is reported so it can be mitigated.

“If we work together, the trend line will continue to decrease,” Formosa said.

The CEO of the Police Force Angelo Gafa meanwhile said that the contents of this report are analysed monthly by the police in order to try and predict certain crime hot-spots and act to prevent those crimes.

He said that it is clear that crime is moving from a physical environment to a digital one, and noted that the Police will continue to invest in the financial crimes department.

However, he emphasized that policing is not a monopoly which belonged to the police: “we need to work together,” he said before noting that the Force’s community policing project is a sign of this.

Camilleri meanwhile called for respect to be shown to the authorities, noting that “It’s pointless going to clap outside if we don’t respect the guidelines issued by the Health Authorities.”

Police Commissioner Appointment Bill to be tabled and voted on in Parliament next week; Community policing project expanded

Camilleri also noted that in spite of the crisis, work had continued and that next week the Bill related to the appointment procedure of the Police Force’s Police Commissioner will be tabled in Parliament for its third reading, and will then be voted upon.

He also announced the expansion of the Community Policing system to other localities. A pilot project in this regard was launched some months ago by the Police in Mellieħa, and its success has been deemed sufficient enough to expand it to other localities such as Swieqi, Rabat, Mdina, Pembroke, Birżebbuġa, Floriana, and Fgura.

Asked by The Malta Independ

ent whether the Police Force has the necessary resources to enforce newly imposed measures related to mitigating the spread of COVID-19, Camilleri replied that the Police Force is prepared for these challenges.

He said that a report had been drawn up which runs through various scenarios – such as the force functioning at various percentages of capacity – and that measures, such as the application for a police conduct online, and the submission of reports of crimes by phone or by email instead of in person, had already been put in place to help mitigate the virus’ spread as per the health authorities’ guidelines.

Replying to another question on the same subject, Camilleri said that one of the eventualities factored into the police’s preparations is a potential increase in criminality as a result of the restrictive measures put in place to stop the spread of the virus.

One course of action, among others in this regard, will be the closure of certain police stations and the redeployment of the officers who would have been in these stations to patrol locality streets instead, he explained.