Staffing and Caseload of Serious Sexual Crimes Branch
Ministry of Home AffairsSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns the staffing, caseload, and referral criteria of the Serious Sexual Crimes Branch (SSCB), as raised by Mr Chen Show Mao. Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam explained that the SSCB handles rape and aggravated sexual assault, while Land Divisions manage other sexual offenses like outrage of modesty. He noted that investigative resources are flexible, allowing the SSCB to scale up by leveraging intelligence and forensic support from across the police force. Over the last three years, the SSCB has investigated an average of 170 cases of rape and sexual assault by penetration annually. The Minister added that nearly all these cases were solved, demonstrating the effectiveness of the specialist units and their supporting police resources.
Transcript
16 Mr Chen Show Mao asked the Minister for Home Affairs (a) what is the number of officers assigned to the Serious Sexual Crimes Branch of the CID; (b) what is the rationale for the staffing numbers at the Serious Sexual Crimes Branch; (c) what is the annual number of cases investigated by the Serious Sexual Crimes Branch since its establishment; and (d) what are the criteria for referring cases to the Serious Sexual Crimes unit.
Mr K Shanmugam: Sexual crime investigations are generally led by specialist units in the Singapore Police Force. The Serious Sexual Crimes Branch (SSCB) in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) leads investigations into serious sexual crimes, such as rape and aggravated cases of sexual assault by penetration (SAP). Specialist teams in the Police Land Divisions lead investigations in other sexual crimes, such as outrage of modesty cases, sexual penetration of minors and SAP cases that do not involve aggravating factors.
The investigation officers in SSCB and the Police Divisions are supported by other Police resources, including in the fields of intelligence and forensics. Depending on the volume of cases, the Police also scale up SSCB's resources where necessary, by leveraging other investigation teams.
As the Member will note, the Police resources used for investigations will vary according to the needs of a case, and because investigations may cover a broad area, not everything needs to be done by SSCB. The investigation will be led by SSCB and the total investigative resources could come from a larger pool of officers.
In the last three years, SSCB investigated, on average, about 170 cases of rape and sexual assault by penetration each year. Nearly all these cases were solved.