Kampala – Uganda registered an 18% increase in the number of crimes reported to Police in 2022 compared to the previous year.
This is contained in the Annual Crime Report 2022 released by Inspector General of Police (IGP) Martin Okoth Ochola at police headquarters in Nagulu, Kampala on Wednesday.
Ochola noted that a total of 231,653 cases were reported in 2022 up from 196,081 cases in 2021.
He attributed this mainly to the full opening of the economy after the Covid-19 lockdown and growing confidence to report crime to Police.
“Out of the total cases reported to Police in 2022, 68,405 cases were taken to Court, 26,749 cases were not proceeded with, while 136,499 cases were still under inquiry. This was an improvement compared to 2021 where 65,008 cases were taken to Court, 60,095 cases not proceeded with and 70,978 cases under Inquiries. This reflects a great improvement in cases taken to Court by 5.2%,” he noted
Also, there was a 35% increase in common traffic offences registered by the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety countrywide from 336,722 cases in 2021 to 456,993 cases in 2022.
“As a result, the number of road traffic crashes increased by 16.9% from 17,443 in 2021 to 20,394 in 2022 where 3,901 crashes were fatal, 10,776 were serious while 5,717 were minor by nature,” said Ochola
The IGP notes that in the period under review, their focus has been on improving the quality of services they offer to the public in terms of enhanced law and order. Other key areas, Ochola said included engagement of communities through community policing programmes, capacity building and developing the initial phase of digitalizing their processes for purposes of easing detection, reporting, tracking, supervision and analysis of crime trends.
“The management of UPF has also focused on improving the welfare of personnel especially in terms of accommodation to enhance performance,” he said
The IGP urged all Ugandans to continue the fight against crime for a safer Uganda. He added, “As we release the Police Annual Crime Report for 2022, we want to assure the public that in 2023, the focus will be to remodel our process to support the Sub county Policing model, welfare enhancement and digitalisation of our processes for enhanced law and order.”
