Crime rate in Mauritius - An article of March 2010 to be updated soon

While reading the stats below one should be careful in interpreting the figures. The CSO website warns that ‘When comparing figures it should be realised that police and judiciary figures are based on offences but prison and probation figures are based on offenders, and that many offenders are sentenced for more than one offence. Also, offences reported at the police can sometimes be reclassified as they proceed from police investigation through prosecution to final court sentence.’

Police

According to the CSO website, in 2008, 248,532 cases in total (242,657 in the Island of Mauritius and 5,875 in the Island of Rodrigues) were notified at the police which is a decrease of 4% over the 258,955 cases (254,159 in the Island of Mauritius and 4,796 in the Island of Rodrigues) reported in 2007.

The total number of offences reported at the police was 178,103 in 2008, down by 8.1% from 193,711 in 2007. Out of the 178,103 reported offences in 2008, 69.4% were contraventions (mainly road traffic contraventions), 24.6% misdemeanours, 3.6% crimes punishable by penal servitude and 2.4% drug related offences.

The campaign against dangerous driving seems to have borne fruits as it was noted that from 2007 to 2008, contraventions fell by 11.4%, drug related offences by 5.5%, crimes by 4.2% while misdemeanours increased by 2.1%. Overall we can say that there has been an improvement as The offence rate per 1,000 mid- year population decreased from 153.7 in 2007 to 140.4 in 2008.

However,  increases were noted in the number of offences related to fraud and dishonesty (8.2%)(Bouzermaurice comment: Mauritians should be given more moral classes I guess), sexual offences (7.6%) (Bouzermaurice comment: Pornography through the internet may be one of the reasons) and assaults & related offences (3.9%) (Bouzermaurice comment: too much stress ma. On the other hand, declines were noted in the number of homicides (7.8%) and drug related cases (5.5%).

Judiciary
Criminal cases lodged reduced by 10.2% from 117,172 in 2007 to 105,206 in 2008. Criminal cases disposed of declined by 16.6% from 122,105 to 101,821. (Bouzermaurice comment: this clearly indicates that things are improving)

Convicted offences as a whole declinedby 14.7% from 116,390 in 2007 to 99,298 in 2008.

Prison

The daily average number of detainees in prison dropped from 2,271 in 2007 to 2,161 in 2008 ie a 4.8 per cent decrease.
Some 70% of prison detainees in 2007 and 2008 consisted of convicts; the remaining detainees comprised mainly the remand and trial prison population.

The admission rate of convicts to prison per 100,000 mid-year population increased from 281.0 in 2007 to 318.3 in 2008.

Probation

In 2008, the number of offenders sentenced with probation orders under supervision in the community was 365, a decline of 21.8% from the 2007 figure of 467.
The total number of offenders subjected to community service work increased by 30.5% from 226 in 2007 to 295 in 2008.

1. Crime, justice and security statistics comprises statistics compiled from the Mauritius Police Force, the Judiciary, the Mauritius Prison Services & the Probation and Aftercare Service.
August 2009