Photo has been used for illustrative purposes.

The Dubai Police’s community centered initiative ‘Positive Soul’ has helped reducing crime rates remarkably across targeted zones and neighbourhoods.

Last year, the initiative’s first phase, which took place in Mirdif, included organising five sport events and delivering 12 awareness lectures to 695 people, leading to a 9.76% reduction in the area’s crime rate index. Meanwhile, the second phase, which took place in Al Muhaisnah, saw organising eight sport events and delivering 15 awareness lectures to 880 people, thus reducing the crime rate index in the area by 67.75%. The third phase in Al Barsha included organising seven events and delivering 13 awareness lectures to 1632 people, which led to a 51.34% drop in the neighbourhood’s crime rate index. Most notably the initiative’s fourth stage in Al Quoz where the crime rate index dropped to zero after organising eight sport events and delivering 18 lectures to 1819 beneficiaries in the Dubai neighbourhood.  

This year, the first phase of Positive Soul saw a 39.2% drop in the crime rate index in Al Twar with eight sport events and 13 awareness lectures benefiting 6963 people, while the second phase in Al Satwa brought the crime rate index down to zero with five sport events and six awareness lectures to 3372 beneficiaries.

These statistics were revealed during the initiatives’ appraisal meeting chaired by the Commander-in-chief of Dubai Police, Major General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, who praised the General Department of Community Happiness at Dubai Police for consolidating the values of tolerance, coexistence and dialogue among members of society.

Recently, Major General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, Commander-in-Chief of the Dubai Police, had chaired the first meeting of the General Administration of Drug Control for the first half of this year. The meeting was attended by Brigadier Eid Mohammed Thani Hareb, Director of the Department, and Brigadier Mohammed Rashid bin Sariea Al Muhairi, Acting Director of the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Investigations, along with several directors of police stations and officers.

At the meeting, they discussed the plans of the Dubai Police Anti-Narcotics Department and its programmes and plans in place to combat narcotics and introduce educational awareness programmes, in addition to reviewing the outcome of the implementation of the decisions taken at the previous evaluation meeting.

Colonel Khalid bin Muiza, Deputy Director of the General Directorate of Narcotics Control, explained to Maj. Gen. Al Marri the drug cases registered with the Dubai Police during the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. This was in addition to the statistics recorded by the department on the quantities seized, those involved, their nationalities, as well as the new methods and attempts by smugglers to conceal drugs.

Col. Muiza said that 648 kilogrammes of drugs and narcotics were seized during the first half of the year ranging from cocaine and heroin to crystal meth, opium, and marijuana.

At the international level, Muiza said that the Dubai Police General Headquarters is sparing no efforts to combat drugs trafficking globally and believes that it is a cross-border issue that requires international cooperation to combat and eliminate it.

He explained that 82 countries were provided with 82 important pieces of information during the first half of the year, which led to the arrest of 23 accused and the seizure of 330kg of drugs, while the General Administration succeeded in monitoring and blocking 20 websites promoting drugs during the same period.

Maj Gen Al Marri reviewed the statistics issued by the International Protection Centre, IPC, which organised the programme, “Spring Vacation”, which saw the participation of 195 students from various schools in Dubai from 20 nationalities, and trained in sports, horse riding, healthcare and various other activities.

The IPC also organised the 14th International Protection Forum, attended by 1,200 participants, which discussed 14 working papers and held six workshops, in addition to two training courses in the field of drug control, which saw 177 participants from various specialised bodies. The centre also held the World Day for Drug Control, which included 15 events benefiting 64,000 people and 440 beneficiaries from 34 nationalities.