Undersecretary of the Governorate Abdul Aziz Al-Khodairi said under the directives of Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, the governorate has an in-depth analysis of the issues that turned into conflicts.
He revealed that about 95 percent of these cases were direct results of the negative phenomena that have spread in a number of regions including drug abuse and trafficking, acquiring knives, swords and daggers, parental disobedience, occupation of government land, family duels including divorce, custody of children and inheritance and escaping to pay private rights of others.
He said the results of the analysis and the security diagnosis confirmed the need for a partnership between the government, private organizations and citizens to undertake a massive awareness campaign in the 12 regions of the province to prevent the spread of the phenomena.
Al-Khodairi said the campaign was aimed at promoting all sections of society to undertake their role in fighting the negative aspects. He said the campaign would urge parents to enlighten their children against the hazards of drugs and the acquisition of weapons which were the tools of crimes in a number of areas.
He said the previous awareness campaigns achieved encouraging results on the security and social levels, recalling in this context the campaign titled: "Makkah Without Crime" which led to a 9 percent drop in crime.
Quoting a statistical police report, Al-Khodairi said crime was down 15 percent in all the regions of the province in April last year compared to 2010. He said murder cases dropped 22 percent while ethical crimes went down about 6.3 percent. "This was a direct result of the awareness campaigns," he said.
Director of public rights in the Governorate Abdullah Al-Qarrash said the awareness campaign was aimed at confronting a deep-rooted social culture that considered acquiring arms a source of pride. He said this culture caused the spread of knives, swords and daggers in schools which some students used in fighting against each other to the point of murder.
Al-Qarrash said the success of the campaign would largely depend on the imams of mosques, preachers, tribal chiefs and educational institutions.
