THE overall number of crime cases in Singapore fell 1.2 per cent last year to 32,412, down from 32,797 the previous year.

Housebreaking saw the greatest improvement in 60 years, the police said in their 2008 report card released on Friday.

But amid the the lower crime rates, violent crime is on the rise, with 4,354 reported cases, up from 2007's 4,113 cases.

Police attributed the increase to three factors: rising numbers in cases involving criminal force, statutory rape and murder.

Most notably, there were 94 more statutory rape and carnal connection cases.

Last year, murder cases climbed to 26, up from 2007's 18. Of these, 10 cases involved foreigners.

Police, however, emphasised that these murders were all isolated and unrelated crimes of passion arising from disputes.

Crimes that saw a dip included outrage of modesty as well as rioting.

But of concern to the police is the prevalence of phone scams. Last year, more than 400 people were cheated of about $7.6 million from various phone scams. This included lucky draw and lottery scams, kidnap hoaxes and scams where culprits impersonated Supreme court officials.

Petty crimes such as theft saw a slight drop, from 19,556 cases in 2007 to 19, 363 last year.

But police anticipate that theft and commercial crime such as cheating may pose a problem in light of the rocky year ahead, and will be keeping tabs on the situation.