Half criminal suspects aged below 30 – report
Friday, April 22, 2022

A total of 18,082 people aged between 18 and 30 make up 48.2 per cent of all criminal suspects, according to the National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) July to December 2021 report.

They are followed by those aged between 31 and 40 who make up 11,020 suspects equal to 29.4 per cent of all 37,490 criminal suspects.

Suspects aged between 14 and 17 make up 3.9 per cent, those aged between 41 and 50 make up 12 per cent and those aged between 51 and 60 make up 4.5 per cent.

Those aged 61 and above have the lowest criminality rate of 2 per cent.

While not much is known about the exact crimes below 30-year-olds mostly commit, the report shows that more than 54 per cent of the 39,242 cases received between July and December last year consisted of intentional assault or battery and theft alone.

These two and eight others: drugs, use of threats, child defilement, breach of trust, harassment of a spouse, unintentional bodily harm, fraud, and damaging or plundering another person’s property make up 92 per cent of all crimes received by prosecution in the last six months of 2021.

28.1 per cent of these crimes were committed in Kigali city, 22.3 per cent in the Eastern Province, 20 per cent in the Southern province, 14.5 per cent in the Western Province, and 12.9 in the Northern Province.