Ever wondered where the safest place in the safest county in the world is? What about the least safe area?
Wonder no more. ValuePenguin, a financial research and analysis specialist firm, has found that Bukit Timah is the number one neighborhood when it comes to safety in all of Singapore. Bukit Timah is well known as a haven for the rich, with plenty of private houses and pricey properties. What’s important to note though is that crime in the area has gone down by 43 percent from 2012 through 2016.
Crime data from the Singapore Police Force and Neighborhood Police Centers from 2012 to 2016 brought to light the five areas with the fewest numbers of reported crime, as well as the five areas that have shown a higher crime rate.
Taken into consideration were a number of criminal acts, including car theft, housebreaking, incidents of snatching, robbery, unlicensed moneylending and unlicensed moneylending harassment.
Rounding out the top five of the safest districts list are: number 2, Bishan; number 3, Kampong Java; number 4, Marine Parade; and number 5, Sembawang, despite it’s nearness to Yishun. Sembawang showed only one incident of vehicle theft in 2016, and absolutely no incidents of robberies or snatching.
The top five neighborhoods with most crimes reported are: number 5. Woodlands East; number 4, Tampines; number 3, Jurong West; number 2, Nanyang; and, as mentioned earlier, number 1 is Yishun North. This should come as no surprise to anyone, given that it’s been christened a “Murderer and Siao Lang” town.
What the five most dangerous neighborhoods have in common is that they are geographically on Singapore’s margins. Jurong West, which has seen many break-ins, and Nanyang, which has the highest number of outrage of modesty incidents in the country, are both found in the west of Jurong.
To the east is Tampines, which sees a high number of unlicensed moneylending, vehicle thefts, robberies and snatching. And in the north, Woodlands East sees many incidents of char thievery and moneylending harassment.
Most dangerous of all is Yishun North, which has the highest overall number of crimes and money harassment cases for Singapore in 2016.
However, the overall picture for the country remains positive. The research also showed that crime has decreased by 15 percent across all of Singapore in the past ten years.
But the denizens of Bukit Timah should not get complacent, however. Though it is the safest district, according to insurer Aviva Singapore in 2016, Bukit Timah Road itself is one of the most dangerous roads in the country.
And runners especially need to stay on their guard. A man was murdered in Bukit Batok in 2011, and in Bukit Batok Nature Park, there have been several murders, rapes and stabbings in this area over the last two decades.
The least safe roads in the country are Bukit Timah Road, Upper Serangoon Road, Braddell Road and Thomson Road, and so it would be good for runners to wear bright articles of clothing when running in these places, so they can be seen by motorists driving by. Runners who frequent trails or parks should also be on the lookout for non-human dangers such as monkeys, insects, monitor lizards and crocodiles, who sometimes manage to find their way to paths close to where people are.