Police report says number of crimes increased by 18% in the year 2022
Frank Semata 
Inspector General of Police noting an 18% increase in the number of crimes reported to Police from 196,081 cases reported in 2021 to 231,653 cases.
He notes that the rise in the number of crimes was mainly due to the full opening of the economy after the Covid-19 lockdown and growing confidence to report crime to Police.
“In 2022, we note that there was an 18% increase in the number of crimes reported to Police from 196,081 cases reported in 2021 to 231,653 cases mainly due to the full opening of the economy after the Covid-19 lockdown and growing confidence to report crime to Police.” Ochola notes.
“Out of the total crimes reported to Police in 2022, 68,405 cases were taken to Court, 26749 cases were not proceeded with, while 136,499 cases are still under inquiry. Thefts registered the highest number of crimes (61,508 cases), followed by Assaults with 32,041 cases, Domestic violence with 17,698 cases, among others”
The report indicates that, “68,405 cases were taken to Court, 26,749 cases were not proceeded with, while 136,499 cases are still under inquiry. Out of the cases taken to Court, 10,648 secured convictions, 38 cases were acquitted, 213 cases were dismissed while 57,508 cases are still pending in Court.”
“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% as shown below; In a related development, 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.”
The report also indicates that traffic crashes increased by 17%
“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.”
Ochola noted that, “In the period under review, our focus has been on improving the quality of services we offer to the public in terms of enhanced law and order, engagement of communities through community policing programmes, capacity building, and developing the initial phase of digitalising our 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. I would like to thank the entire Police fraternity for keeping the country safe.”
The IGP urged all Ugandans to continue the fight against crime for a safer Uganda.
“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.”
