The Secretary for Security, Cheong Kuoc Va, today (30 July) said that the public order of Macao was stable for the first half of this year. He added that he would reinforce prevention and would continue to fight crime.

Mr. Cheong said that although crime as a whole had increased by 1.8%, murder, kidnapping, robbery, drug trafficking and juvenile crimes had dropped. He said that the authorities would continue to improve public order through more rigorous enforcement of the existing laws.

Mr. Cheong compared crime statistics from the first six months of 2002 with crime statistics from the same period last year. He said that only two murder cases and two kidnapping cases had been reported in the first six months of this year, a sharp decrease of 60% and 66.7% respectively. He also pointed out that extortion cases fell 10% (four fewer cases) and drug trafficking decreased by 44.6% (25 fewer cases), although violent crime had increased 14.9% (63 more cases).

Due to increased efforts, the authorities reported a decrease of 32.2% (28 fewer cases) in juvenile crime over the same period last year.

According to the figures, the total number of crimes committed during the first half of this year was 4,472, a slight increase of 1.8% (78 more cases). This was due to an 8.6% increase in crimes against persons (74 more cases) and a 2.3% increase in property crimes (54 more cases).

Mr. Cheong revealed that 1,562 suspects had been arrested and sent to the Public Prosecution Office during the first half of 2002.

Regarding the fight against illegal immigration, Mr. Cheong said that 8,345 persons were repatriated, including 762 illegal immigrants from Mainland China (431 fewer cases) and 7,583 persons who had overstayed their visas (796 more cases).