THE nation’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur recorded almost double the national average crime index in 2017, despite an overall reduction in dangerous crimes last year, according to the Statistics Department’s latest report.

The crime index is calculated by dividing the number of reported crimes by the total population and multiplying the result by 100,000.

In 2017, the national crime index dropped to 309.7, compared to 355.2 the year before.

However, six states recorded a crime index above the national level, with Kuala Lumpur topping the list at 716.9, Selangor at 408.6, Negri Sembilan at 356.6, Malacca at 339.2, Penang at 318.3, and Kedah at 315.3.

Meanwhile, Sabah recorded the lowest crime index in the country for 2017 at 157.7.

The 2018 Crime Statistics report also noted that Sabah along with Kelantan, Terengganu, and Labuan recorded an increasing trend on the number of drug addicts nabbed in the states from 2015 to 2017.

States like Perak, Malacca, Sarawak and Perlis meanwhile saw a decrease in the number of addicts over the same period.

Both violent and property crimes declined in numbers in 2017 as compared with 2016, based on the statistics from the Royal Malaysian Police.

Violent crimes dropped by 4.3% to 21,366 cases since 2015 (21,809 cases), while property crimes decreased 13.6% to 77,802 cases since 2015 (99,735 cases).

Last year, the number of investigation papers opened and number of arrests by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) also declined by 12.4% to 863 cases from 985 in 2016.

In the same period, the number of arrests made by MACC declined 6.4%.

The only one that recorded an increase is reports of “misuse of position”, which almost doubled from 28 cases in 2016 to 54 cases in 2017. – December 28, 2018.