'Mauritius' crime rate increased in 2020'

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) – Statistics Mauritius said on Wednesday that crime rate (excluding contraventions) per 1,000 population, increased from 35.6 in 2019 to 43.8 in 2020.

Reporting on crime and justice in its latest bulletin, it said from 2019 to 2020, cases reported to the police (which include overall offences and other occurrences) decreased by 15.0%, from 293,199 to 249,208. In 2020, some 48,932 cases were not classified as offences against 60,185 in 2019, down by 18.7%.

It highlighted that some 27.7% of the overall offences reported in 2020 were linked to crimes (3.4%) and misdemeanours (24.3%).  The remaining 72.3% were contraventions, the majority of which were related to road traffic offences.

Between 2019 and 2020, the general level of crime and misdemeanour, as measured by police-reported offences, excluding contravention increased by 23.1% from 45,004 to 55,402, mainly due to a rise of 7.4% in drug offences and partly offset by a decrease in assault (-10.7%) from 10,112 to 9,003 during the same period.

Furthermore, the contravention rate per 1,000 population in Mauritius decreased from 148.5 to 114.5 during the same period, mostly due to decreases in all road traffic contraventions.

-0- PANA NA/MA 1July2021