Singapore may be the safest country in the world, as recently noted by The Economist magazine, with few murders, nearly all of which are solved.
But in a Facebook post yesterday, Law Minister K. Shanmugam said it was also important for the country to remain vigilant, especially in the area of gang violence.
He highlighted a recent study of homicide trends here by two senior officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) - Mr Tai Wei Shyong, who is the chief prosecutor of the State Prosecution Division in the Attorney-General's Chambers, and Ms Tang Gek Hsien, an assistant director of MHA's Joint Operations Division.
They studied figures from 1955 to 2011 and found that homicide rates have steadily decreased since the 1950s, as the population grew more prosperous and educated, among other reasons. But the study also noted that in recent years, there has been group violence in Singapore between male gangs which has led to deaths, Mr Shanmugam pointed out.
"They wisely warned that it was important for us, from a policy perspective, not to assume that historical murder rates will not rise again, if there are changes in our social structures and norms," wrote the minister. "We need to watch out for emerging sub-cultures of violence among socially disenfranchised groups."
Referring to The Economist article published in April, Mr Shanmugam said Singapore had 11 murders in 2012 - one for every 480,000 people. He contrasted this with Honduras, "the world's most violent country", where one in every 1,100 was killed.
He added that Singapore also had a high solutions rate for murder - about 90 per cent, against the global rate of 43 per cent.
This article was first published on August 28, 2014.
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