The Malta Police Force's Criminal Investigation Department is 100 today

Abstract

Before British rule, crime prevention was enforced by the threat of hard punishments. Such punishments remained on the statute books after 1800; however, owing to the frequent number of thefts, the British administration introduced the payment of rewards to those giving information leading to the prevention of a theft or to the arrest of the thieves. In an attempt to combat the surge of crime, the police kept an eye on shady characters, known in those days as the precettati di note, who were ordered to report their whereabouts to the police daily. Crime statistics for 1848 reveal that the number of reported crimes for that year was 527. This number decreased to 364 in 1851 and to 190 in 1863. Moreover, 384 crimes were solved in 1848, while the number of unsolved crimes in 1851 was only 10.