Pauline Etienne
17 August 2007
Port Louis — The latest report of the Central Statistics Office on crime shows a frightening trend. The number of offences is increasing and particularly those involving young people.
291 cases of assaults in schools have been reported between July 2005 and July 2007.
The rise in criminal offences committed by young people is important enough to request general attention. According to the latest Central Statistics Office (CSO) report on Crime Statistics, the number of offences involving juveniles (defined as persons aged 12 to 17 years) in the Republic of Mauritius has increased significantly by 40.9% from 582 to 820 between 2005 and 2006. The overall offence rate has gone up by 19.2% as well. But the large increase in cases involving young people is quite frightening, as they are supposed to be the future of society.
Among the 836 juveniles involved in offences in 2006, four were involved in intentional homicides, 173 in assaults, 124 in larceny, 57 in sexual offences and the remaining in other offences including traffic infraction, states the report.
Last month in Parliament, the then acting prime minister, Rashid Beebeejaun, pointed out, in reply to a question by the opposition, that 291 cases of assaults in schools had been reported since July 2005. However, he immediately made it clear that the "different authorities concerned have devised preventive strategies to address this problem". The school staff, the ministry of Education, the Crime Prevention Unit, the Family and Child Protection Unit, the Minors' Squad and the police at large should be tackling the issue.
When the opposition pointed at the need to go to the "root causes of violence" and the "motives behind these students to resort to violence", the acting PM agreed that these behaviours should be analysed carefully. "As we can realise, this is a worldwide problem as well and it is going to be worse if we don't attend to it," he said.
The Minors' Squad, set up in 2004 to fight juvenile delinquency, has also been reinforced since last month. To be more present throughout the island and take action in a more efficient way, the number of members in this special squad has gone up from five to 35.
Unfortunately, the number of sexual offences does not lag behind and has increased by 33.8%. This is why the government came forward with the Sexual Offences Bill last April. The objective of this bill was to make the law more severe against all those committing sexual offences.
However, the bill raised a number of questions from non-governmental organisations and lawyers as well as from the opposition. As a result, a special committee was constituted with members of the majority and the opposition to discuss the bill more in-depth and take the public's fears into consideration. The committee will have to be quick in giving its conclusions to be able to reach a compromise and finally find a way of reducing the number of sexual offences.
Public safety, a top priority
The number of homicides and related offences has increased as well by 13.4%.
More than 600 new members of the police force have already been appointed in April and May - and 500 more should be enrolled in October this year. This is a sign that the authorities are taking the issue seriously and want to provide security to all its citizens. "Public safety is a top priority for the government and we are really concerned by the reform," declared the prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, in Parliament last June.
During this session, the opposition had insisted on the high number of assaults since the beginning of the year. "40 assaults every day," the opposition leader, Nando Bodha, had claimed. In his reply, the PM insisted that the crime rate had always been high but nevertheless he insisted that "a crime is also one too many".
So, he enumerated the coming projects to fight the tendency - among which video-surveillance in Port-Louis, modernisation of the forensic laboratory or more appropriate use of DNA tests. So far, however, all these projects are still on paper and have not given expected results. There is either a need to re-examine these projects or implement them.
Living in a secure island is not only a right that all citizens should have. Security has become a condition for economic growth. Who will come to a beautiful but dangerous island? The government must act before the situation becomes alarming.
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