General crime rate across the country increased marginally in the first quarter of 2018, the Police CID announced Friday, but assured Ghanaians of efforts to bring the situation to its lowest ebb.
Robbery, carjacking, defilement, rape, murder, narcotics and human trafficking cases recorded between January and May 21 this year cumulatively, slightly went up compared to figures from the same period in the last three years.
Director of Operations of Criminal Investigative Department, ACP Joseph Oklu Gyamera who announced this said robbery cases recorded nationwide within the period amounted to 484.
In January, a total of 121 cases were recorded but the figure dropped to 92 in February and went up again in March to 98 and again in April with 103 cases before it finally dropped to 70 as at May 21.
He said 65 per cent of the recorded robbery cases were concentrated in largely in Accra and Ashanti regions.
“The nine police units accounted for only 35 per cent of the robbery cases for this year [first quarter ending May 21],” ACP Gyamera said.
He said after that relatively high start in January, there was “relative stability between February and April and this trend is expected to continue or even drop further”
“The average number of robbery cases per week according to the record, is about 24,” he noted.
There were a total of 44 carjacking cases nationwide within the period with Greater Accra recording 21 cases and Ashanti 14. Tema followed with 12 cases and then Eastern Region with 6 cases while Western Region had one case.
Greater Accra and Ashanti regions topped street robbery cases with 78 and 48 respectively; accounting for 126 out of the 172 cases nationwide.
With residential robberies, a total of 124 cases were recorded within the period most of which took place in Greater Accra, Ashanti, Tema and Eastern regions.
Again, Greater Accra and Ashanti regions topped the list in workplace robberies recording 63 per cent of the total of 95 cases recorded within the quarter.
“With workplace robberies the main victims are mobile money vendors; they are the worst victims of this kind of crime,” ACP Gyamera observed.
He thus underscored the need for them to ensure that they “adopt more secured measures in the way they handle the monies, such as the use of money safe”.
A total of 49 cases highway robberies were recorded with Ashanti topping the list.
Eastern region topped in rape cases with 16 cases, representing almost 14 per cent.
“When it comes to murder, murder cases were recorded in all regions and in every single week over the period under review,” the Director said.
Ashanti Region topped the list registering 29 cases representing almost 93 per cent.
With narcotics, a total of 80 cases were recorded nationwide with Greater Accra and Ashanti topping the list with 19 cases each.
Greater Accra topped human trafficking cases with 6 cases out of the total of 9.
“Trafficking cases were a bit on the lower side,” ACP Gyamera said.
A total of 339 victims were rescued of which 122 were females and 217 males. Also, 120 were female children and 149 male children with 12 foreign nationals.
“Judging from the crime rate, the slight increase in the 2018 figures has been mainly as a result of more effective collection and management of database else the trend is almost the same” ACP Gyamera told journalists.
To effectively manage the crime situation, he said there will be periodic intelligence-led swoops, proactive collaborative patrols of both the plain cloth and our uniformed counterparts.
He said the Police Intelligence units, which was previously only available at the CID headquarters, is now being replicated in all the regions beginning at the Accra Regional headquarters.
The unit, he explained, is “to detect and foil crimes before they are committed”.
By Stephen Kwabena Effah|3news.com|Ghana
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