Hong Kong’s recorded a total of 33,916 crimes from January to June of this year, 2,152 fewer than the same period last year, representing a 6% decrease. It’s the lowest crime rate in 34 years. Thought most types of serious crime saw some significant decreases, cases of deception (including fraud) and blackmail increased.
Change in crime rates by type for January – June 2014 from January – June 2013
(Data: The Police Department)
The most notable drops are in homicide and rape, which dropped by 75.5% and 62.7% respectively. There were 13 cases of homicide in the first half of 2014, compared to 53 last year. It should be noted that last year, there were 39 cases of homicide in the Lamma ferry collision incident alone. When discounting the Lamma case, homicide only decreased by a single case.
Deception cases rose by 22%. Of these, 10.7% were social media cases. Social media fraud more than tripled and involved $43 million in losses, over double the amount from the same period last year. Companies lost a staggering $570 million in email scams that targeted corporations, an increase of roughly 80%.
Reported blackmail cases increased by 68.8%, which can be mainly attributed to those involving “naked chats”. These made up 75% of the total blackmail cases. Lo Mung Hung, the Police Director of Crime & Security, said that “naked chat” blackmail cases increased by almost 140% from last year. “Money loss ranged from several hundred dollars to nearly 70,000”, said Lo.
Lo said best way to stop “naked chat” blackmail crimes was for people to be more wary of strangers when online and to be duped less easily. If you’re easily tricked, stop being so easily tricked!
The type of crime that showed the least change was by far serious drug offences, which showed roughly no change at all. There were only three less cases from the same period last year, from 1086 to 1083. It seems like the one thing we can rely on in this town is that people will still keep using drugs.
Watch the government-released video on the decreasing crime rate below:
Screenshot/Video: The Information Services Department via YouTube
