Safe city: Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee says Hong Kong's general law and order situation is stable.

Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee has called on the community to join an anti-drug campaign to launch in June by an inter-departmental task force led by the Secretary for Justice.

Speaking after today's Fight Crime Committee meeting Mr Lee said although Hong Kong's general law and order situation remained stable last year, youth drug abuse has aroused concern with a rise in cases.

Mr Lee said although juvenile delinquency has not worsened the Government is concerned about youth drug abuse as 922 of last year's 2,700 serious drug offences involved young people, with 77% of them using psychotropic drugs.

Attributing the problem to the stronger economy, more supply, peer influence and youths' misconception of the impact of drug-taking, Mr Lee urged the community to partake in the anti-drug campaign as a holistic approach not only focusing on law enforcement but also on co-operation among education partners, social workers and parents is needed to tackle the problem. One of the main themes of he Fight Crime Committee's publicity plan for 2008-09 will be combating youth drug abuse.

Crime cut

On the general crime situation, Mr Lee said there were 80,796 cases last year, down 0.4% on 2006. There were fewer burglaries (-15.1%), robberies (-22.7%), car thefts (-21.2%) and thefts from vehicles (-12.8%).

However, violent crime rose 0.6% to 14,934, along with serious narcotics offences (+30.5%), criminal intimidation (+16.2%), criminal damage (+6.2%) and serious assaults (+1.4%).

Meanwhile, quoting a report by the Commissioner of Police, Fight Crime Committee member Dr John Tse said commercial-crime figures fell significantly last year with deceptions relating to modelling firms and the Internet each recording only two cases. There were no cases for pyramid-selling.

There were more than 200 counterfeit-banknote cases in the second half of 2007, down 90% on the first half, showing the situation has been brought under control.