Kralendijk- Crime figures seem to be heading down on Bonaire. This can be concluded from a presentation presented by the Police Force Caribbean Netherlands (KPCN) yesterday.

KPCN presents an overview of crime and traffic figures every 6 months with the aim of giving the citizens of Bonaire insight into developments on the island. To provide a better overview of developments, the half-year figures are compared with both the annual and half-year figures for the previous year.

Property crimes (crimes where the perpetrator enriches himself by means of a crime) show a decrease of 19 cases compared to the half-year figures for 2018. ‘Other theft’ has fallen from 97 incidents in June 2018 to 66 incidents in June 2019.

The category of theft of motor vehicles (cars, buses and trucks) also shows a decrease from 12 in 2018 (six months) to 2 in 2019 (six months). This means that 83% fewer vehicles were taken away in the first half of 2019 than in the first half of 2018.

The category ‘violent crimes’ shows an increase with 115 cases up to and including June 2019. In the same period in 2018, there were 110.

In the first six months of both 2018 and 2019, 8 robberies were registered.

Traffic

The traffic figures show that 622 cases were reported up to and including June this year. That is an increase of 13.5% compared to January up to and including June 2018. With the introduction of the Road Traffic Regulation on 1 August 2019, the KPCN hopes that both the number of collisions with injuries, fatalities and collisions with damage to eyes will decrease.

During the remaining months of 2019, the focus of the Bonaire Justice Triangle will mainly be on the new changes to the road traffic regulations that were implemented on 1 August. The priorities are mainly for driving under the influence, holding a mobile communication device while driving, driving without child seats, driving without a seat belt and using a helmet on a motorcycle, scooter or moped.