Crime: 'We have to do more'
4 July 2007
While most types of contact crime - including rape, robbery and assault - decreased in South Africa in 2006/07, aggravated robbery and murder increased. Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula says more must be done, and that the government has taken a number of steps to tackle violent crime in the country.
Speaking at the release of the crime statistics for 2006/07 in Cape Town on Tuesday, Nqakula expressed concern about the recent increase in aggravated robbery and murder in light of gains made in reducing violent crime over the past few years.
The 2006/07 figures show a decrease in six out of eight categories of contact crime, resulting in an overall 3.4% drop in contact crimes compared with 2005/06. There were decreases in common assault (down 8.7%), common robbery (5.8%), indecent assault (5.5%), rape (5.2%), assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm (4.9%) and attempted murder (3%).
Comparison with statistics for 2003/04 shows even greater decreases - common assault, for example, has fallen by 26.8% in the last three years, common robbery by 27% and attempted murder by 34%.
Aggravated robbery, murder buck the trend
However, aggravated robberies increased by 4.6% in 2006/07 compared to the previous year - despite being 7.3% down on the 2003/04 figure.
And murders - measured per 100 000 of the population - were up by 2.4%, from 18 528 in 2005/06 to 19 202 in 2006/07.
Speaking to reporters, police analyst Chris de Kock said aggravated robbery accounted for 15% of all contact crimes in South Africa in 2006/07, adding that the greater part of aggravated robberies - 72.7%, or to 100 000 cases - were street or public robberies.
House robberies - involving confrontational incidents, as opposed to burglaries – accounted for 10.1% of aggravated robberies. The majority of house robberies (55%) took place in Gauteng province.
Bank robberies more than doubled, from 59 in 2005/06 to 129 in 2006/07 - but still fell far short of the 356 bank robberies recorded in the 2001/02.
Nqakula, acknowledging the "devastating effect on the psyche of the nation" of crimes such as house robberies, said the government would continue to mobilise communities and the business sector to "participate in the effort to provide safety and security to our people and visitors to our country".
Recent massive increases in investment in people, technology, training and management had begun to effect "changes to policing that will bring down crime in South Africa."
'Social' crime
At the same time, Nqakula said, both police and independent analysis showed that at least two-thirds of all serious and violent crimes in the country were "social crimes" - crimes that took place among people who knew one another, that usually occurred within the confines of the same social environment, and that were often triggered by
alcohol and substance abuse.
This was supported by the fact that serious and violent crimes occured mainly over weekends, peaked over the December/January holiday period, and were at their lowest in the mid-winter months.
The statistics also showed that murders were committed in a minority - 8.5% - of South Africa's 1 1 00 police precincts, and sexual offences in just 10.3% of station areas.
Closer scrutiny of these geographic areas showed poor socio-economic conditions, Nqakula said, confirming that the social conditions under which many South Africans continued to live had a large impact on the incidence of crime.
No excuse
However, Nqakula said, this did not detract from the urgent need to confront these types of crimes. It also remained the case that about 20% of serious and violent crimes in South Africa were committed by strangers carrying dangerous weapons.
Nonetheless, the nature of crime in South Africa was being researched by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in a study commissioned by the police. The results of this study were expected in a few months, Nqakula said.
The government has also been busy pushing more resources to the frontline of the fight against crime - the local police station - with more detectives and better resources to improve police response times.
The restructuring and decentralisation of the SAPS began in August last year, and a detailed assessment of its effectiveness would be conducted in 2008, the minister said.
At the same time, community policing forums were being strengthened across the country to involve communities in the fight against crime and better coordinate communication between community members and the police.
Source: BuaNews
