Emmanuel Eumu.
The IGP Okoth Ocola has applauded the Uganda Police for achieving their target for the first time in his statement, “The Force is proud of the achievements made in 2023, Including the implementation of the sub-county policing model in Greater Masaka, the establishment of call response centers, and the expansion of motorcycle squads. These initiatives have contributed to a more visible and effective police presence across the country.”
Police have registered in cases reported in the year 2023 in comparison to what was reported in 2022, the latest annual crime report has indicated.
The report, released on Wednesday at the Police headquarters in Naguru has indicated that the cases reported dropped from 231,653 in 2022 to 228074 in 2023, indicating a 1.5% reduction.
This figure implies that a total of 19004 cases were reported on average per month .
The cases
Of the 228074 cases, 12,924 were economic and corruption related, 10,741 related to children, 14,543 breakings, 14846 sex related offenses, 29,884 assault cases and 65901 thefts.
The report further indicates that whereas 84907 cases were taken to court, another 94535 are still under inquiry, 843 had suspects acquitted, 10,096 dismissed for want of prosecution, , 46843 cases are still pending in court and 123,590 have their cases files submitted and still with the resident state attorneys.
According to the report,231,601 persons were victims of crime, a figure that indicates that out of every 100,000 people, 501 are victims of crime.
Suspects
The report indicates that resulting out of all the cases reported to police in 2023, there were 104, 088 suspects, 94,622 of whom were male adults, 6509 female adults, 2657 male juveniles and 300 female juveniles.
All these were arrested and charged to court.
Of the 104, 088 suspects, 33919 were convicted showing a conviction rate of 32.6%.
Trend
The report shows that with 55,704 theft cases reported in 2019, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021 but these cases have sharply risen in the last two years to 61,508 in 2022 and 65,901 in 2023.
On the other side, sex related offenses seems to have reduced from 15,638 in 2019, to 14,846 last year.
The cases of domestic violence reported in 2019 were 13,639, rising to 17,644 in 2020, the highest in the last five years, then to 14,681 reported last year.
The report also indicates that 1144 cases related to fire were reported in 2023 with 940 being big fires, 189 small and 15 were false alarms for fire.
Traffic
In 2023, there were 23608 crashes on Ugandans roads, 4179 being fatal, 12487 serious and 6942 being minor.
A fatal accident is one in which a person or more dies, serious accidents have only people injured whereas minor accidents are ones where only vehicles are damaged with no deaths or injuries.
