Cheong Kuoc Va, the Secretary for Security of the MSAR, told a press conference that the number of violence crimes stood at 193 in the first quarter, a year-on-year drop of two percent. The MSAR in 2005 saw a drop of 8.1 percent in the number of violence crimes over the previous year, the official said. The number of overall criminal cases, however, reached 2,634 in the first quarter, a year-on-year rise of seven percent, Cheong said.

The region, with a population of 480,000, recorded 40 juvenile delinquency cases in the quarter, up 5.3 percent over the same period in 2005, he added. Enditem