It is my pleasure to present the Uganda Police Force Annual Crime Report for 2022 as a form of accountability to the population on how the Uganda Police Force is fulfilling its mandate as stipulated under Article 212 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda. In 2022, we note that there was an 18% increase in the number of crimes reported to Police from 196,081 cases reported in 2021 to 231,653 cases mainly due to the full opening of the economy after the Covid-19 lockdown and growing confidence to report crime to Police.
Out of the total cases reported to Police in 2022, 68,405 cases were taken to Court, 26,749 cases were not proceeded with, while 136,499 cases were still under inquiry. This was an improvement compared to 2021 where 65,008 cases were taken to Court, 60,095 cases not proceeded with and 70,978 cases under inquiries. This reflects a great improvement in cases taken to Court by 5.2%.
In a related development, there was a 35% increase in common traffic offences registered by the Directorate of Traffic and Road Safety countrywide from 336,722 cases in 2021 to 456,993 cases in 2022. As a result, the number of road traffic crashes increased by 16.9% from 17,443 in 2021 to 20,394 in 2022 where 3,901 crashes were fatal, 10,776 were serious while 5,717 were minor by nature.
In the period under review, our focus has been on improving the quality of services we offer to the public in terms of enhanced law and order, engagement of communities through community policing programmes, capacity building, and developing the initial phase of digitalising our processes for purposes of easing detection, reporting, tracking, supervision and analysis of crime trends. The management of UPF has also focused on improving the welfare of personnel especially in terms of accommodation to enhance performance.
I would like to thank the entire Police fraternity for keeping the country safe. I also convey my gratitude to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, other Security Agencies, JLOS Partners, the Media and the general public for their continued support in fighting crime. On a special note, I register my sincere appreciation to H.E. The President of the Republic of Uganda for the continuous guidance and support to the Uganda Police Force in fighting crime.
Finally, I urge all Ugandans to continue the fight against crime for a safer Uganda. As we release the Police Annual Crime Report for 2022, we want to assure the public that in 2023, the focus will be to remodel our process to support the Sub county Policing model, welfare enhancement and digitalisation of our processes for enhanced law and order.
J.M. Okoth-Ochola (Esq)
Inspector General of Police
