TOKYO- The number of criminal offenses reported to police in Japan in January-June fell 7.7 percent from a year earlier to 450,887, on track to hit an annual postwar low, a National Police Agency report showed Thursday.

The annual crime figure has kept declining since peaking at 2,853,739 in 2002.

The number of crimes continued to drop after the police acknowledged the fewest Penal Code offenses in the post-World War II period for the second straight year in 2016, according to the preliminary report.

On top of crime prevention efforts in the public and private sectors such as increasing the number of policemen and volunteer patrollers, the proliferation of surveillance and dashboard cameras is believed to have made society safer, an NPA official said.

In the 2017 first half, the police received fewer crime reports than the previous year in 45 of Japan's 47 prefectures. (Jiji Press)