Reporter

THE National Police reported on Sunday that index crimes went down in the past six months although non-index crimes slightly increased.

It also noted a very slight increase in theft (1.75 percent) and rape (0.49 percent) cases from January to June this year.

Citing records of the Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management (DIDM), Chief Supt. Nicanor Bartolome, National Police spokesman, said the overall index crime decreased further by 2.63 percent with a corresponding single-digit decline in murder and physical injuries, and a 10.8-percent decrease in homicide cases.

Bartolome explained that the increase in non-index crimes (7.92 percent) was the result of more accomplishments by police units in the enforcement of special laws against illegal gambling, illegal logging, illegal fishing, intellectual-property rights violations, crimes against public morals and other less serious criminal offenses.

On the other hand, the marked decrease in the number of index crimes, particularly murder, homicide, physical injury and robbery, are indications of an effective crime-prevention strategy primarily through increased police visibility, downloading of more personnel to field units and swift response to incidents.

“Overall, the past six months was generally better compared with the same period last year. Although there is a 1.92-percent increase in total crime volume, much of this increase is attributed to nonindex crime cases which make up 45.7 percent of all recorded crimes,” Bartolome said.

Among the index crime cases, cases categorized as crimes against persons (murder, homicide, physical injury and rape) went down by 5.12 percent, while crimes against property (robbery and theft) was slightly up by 0.72 percent for the past six months.

Bartolome said the total crime volume during the six-month period was 34,512, but the National Police was able to solve 30,800 or 89.24 percent of these cases, which is 3.10 percent better than its crime solution performance in 2007.

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