11% of the local criminal records in the past two years is dedicated to assault crimes committed against official authority personnel, according to the statistics provided by the Jordanian Criminal Records Bureau.

Numbers at the Criminal Information Department show that 2525 out of the 22550 crimes committed in 2017 involve either resistaning or attacking an authority representative or a governmental employee.

According to the 2017 amendments of the Jordanian Penal Code No. 187, assaulting employees while on duty results in liability to imprisonment for a period not less than six months.

Committing an assault against an on-duty member of the Armed Forces, the General Intelligence, the Public Security, the Directorate of Gendarmerie or the Civil Defence, leads to imprisonment of at least one year.

Earlier this week, the Kingdom witnessed a sample of these incidents when a video of a traffic officer being attacked by a group of men went viral. The officer, who was beaten and later admitted to the hospital, was assaulted for issuing violation tickets against a group of cars which were blocking traffic (you can read more about the story here).

So far, two of the offenders were identified and accordingly arrested. The final verdict of their punishment is yet to be announced as the investigation is still undergoing.

Instructor of Social Sciences and Criminology at Mutah University, Hussain Mahadeen, said that such crimes that involve attacking public sector employees is associated with disrespecting the law as a whole.