Infotextblast


Friday, June 19, 2015

Traffic incidents cause crimes increase in May

  Rey Anthony H. Chiu

BOHOL, June 19 (PIA)-- Crimes in Bohol for May increased due to traffic accidents which are now part of the police crime logs.  Camp Dagohoy reported that the crime of physical injuries in May was recorded at 227 higher than that in April's 173 cases. 


Bohol police chief Senior Superintendent Dennis Agustin said, minus the traffic related incidents (TRI) in the blotters, crime stats would be lower. 

At the recent provincial Peace and order Council meeting in time for the Health Education Agriculture Tourism and Information Technology (HEAT-IT) Caravan in Inabanga town, Agustin said of the 227 physical injury cases in May 144 of them are vehicular accidents. 

In the last two months (April and May) total crime volume in Bohol reached 1607 but without the traffic related incidents in it, police would be looking at 1249 cases. This, Colonel Agustin pointed out, is 22% decrease. 

To further highlight the disparity if traffic related incidents were not counted among cases, Col Agustin cited physical injuries and homicide cases in Bohol in April and May reached 400, but 245 cases of them involved vehicular accidents; Col Agustin noted as 61%.

For malicious mischief, there are 145 cases, which should have been only 43 cases, if traffic related incidents were counted out of it. The TRI in this case is 70%. 

On homicide, or the killing of one person by another can either be intentional, which is murder, or unintentional, which is manslaughter. Col Agustin points out "there were 20 cases recorded and 10 of these are traffic related.  Bohol would have 50% decrease in crimes logged if traffic related cases are separately registered.

This shows that if proper attention is focused on keeping traffic violations at the minimum, total crime volume could go down and lives could be spared, a PPOC member said. 

This data stunned members of the PPOC as this was the first time that the figures revealed dramatic impacts on the efforts to erase the misconception that Boholanos are troublesome owing to the high physical injury cases noted. (mbcn/rahc/PIA7-Bohol)