Police officers inspect a burning barricade ignited by rioters to block a road in Mong Kok on Feb 29, 2020. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)

Hong Kong overall crime rate rose 9.2 percent last year amid months of anti-government protests after hitting a 48-year low in 2018, the police said on Monday.

The crime rate for the first six months of 2019 before the outbreak of violence protests actually fell 4.7 percent from a year earlier period

Commissioner of Police Chris Tang Ping-keung said at a press briefing that the force recorded 5,000 more cases than the year before, most of which were directly linked to protests in the second half of 2019, including criminal damage, arson, riot, unlawful assembly, possession of offensive weapons and doxxing. The crime rate for the first six months of 2019 before the outbreak of violence protests actually fell 4.7 percent from a year earlier period. 

The number of burglaries, robberies, snatching and in-car thefts also increased because criminals tried to take advantage of the overstretched police manpower in maintaining social order, he said. The manpower shortage also contributed to a 9.4 percent year-on-year decline in the force’s overall detection rate to 37.1 percent. 

Tang said he was “extremely concerned” about the high proportion of student’s participation in the protest related crimes, noting about 40 percent of more than 7,500 people arrested over the protests were students. What’s more troubling is that underage students accounted for 50 percent of arrests in January, 2020, he said.

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He urged people to stop encouraging young people to participate in street violence or tolerate radical protesters whose tendency to escalate violence posed serious threats to public safety.

The lack of awareness to abide by the law among residents, especially young people, might endanger the city’s rule of law, Tang said. 

He also warned about the emergence of home-grown terrorism, noting that the past nine months saw rising cases related to dangerous items such as explosives, guns, corrosive liquids and homemade bombs.

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Tang noted that the contentious HK$2.9 billion increase in police budget was reasonable because 12,000 officers were required to work overtime during the social unrest, with some of them having to work for 50 hours at a stretch.