Reported crime volumes and prosecution efficiency in Uganda.

Abstract

Crime remains a significant challenge to economic development, social cohesion, and public trust in governance institutions, particularly in developing countries where law enforcement resources are limited. In Uganda, despite the availability of annual crime reports from the Uganda Police Force, there has been limited systematic analysis of crime trends, prosecution efficiency, and future crime projections to support evidence-based policymaking. This study addressed this gap through a secondary analysis of crime data from 2020 to 2023. The study adopted a quantitative, longitudinal, and retrospective research design. Secondary data were extracted from annual crime reports published by the Uganda Police Force for the years 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Data were collected for 14 crime categories, capturing reported cases and prosecuted cases for each category. Descriptive statistics, percentage change calculations, and prosecution rate computations were performed using Microsoft Excel. Forecasting was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics, employing linear trend extrapolation for thefts (non-stationary series) and Simple Exponential Smoothing for other crimes and assaults (stationary series). Model fit was evaluated using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). The findings revealed that total reported crimes increased by 16.4% from 195,931 in 2020 to 228,074 in 2023, peaking at 231,653 in 2022. Thefts recorded the highest absolute and percentage increase (57.1%), rising from 41,950 to 65,901 cases, and remained the most dominant crime category throughout the study period. Breakings increased by 43.8%, robberies by 46.6%, and economic crimes by 28.2%. In contrast, sex-related offences declined by 8.0%, homicides by 4.8%, and political/media offences by 87.9%. The overall prosecution rate averaged 32.2% over the study period, with significant variation across categories: narcotics/drugs (65.3%), other laws (52.7%), theft (43.3%), sex-related offences (40.9%), and child-related offences (7.3%). Corruption recorded the lowest prosecution rate at 5.2%. The overall prosecution rate improved from 28.9% in 2020 to 37.2% in 2023. The forecasts revealed divergent trajectories across the three highest-volume categories. Thefts are projected to increase from 75,680 thousand in 2024 to 84,658 thousand in 2025, representing a 28.5% increase from 2023 levels. The linear trend model explained 89.7% of the variance in theft cases (R² = 0.897). The study concludes that Uganda faces a growing property crime challenge, particularly theft, while the criminal justice system exhibits significant case attrition, with only one-third of reported crimes resulting in prosecution. Recommendations include: (1) prioritizing targeted anti-theft interventions in high-risk urban hotspots; (2) strengthening prosecution capacity for theft, assault, and other high-volume categories.