Crime statistics a sea of red
17 February 2023
Like the energy crisis, South Africa has a crime problem that has taken on disastrous proportions and needs to be urgently addressed, before it is too late to turn it around, like Eskom.
A total of 27 066 people were murdered in South Africa between January and December last year. That equals 2 256 per month or 79 per day. The figures for every other crime category are equally shocking.
Today's crime statistics for October to December 2022 make it abundantly clear that the Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, has lost the fight against crime. A new minister is urgently needed to turn the situation around.
The question remains whether President Cyril Ramaphosa will be willing to act or is he is simply going to stand idly by and look on as crime continues to grow out of control, just like he looked on while Eskom was collapsing on his watch.
All crimes in the category where the crime is specifically committed against a person (contact crimes) increased sharply in comparison to the same period last year.
That includes murder (7 555, increased with 10,1%), sexual offences (9,6%), attempted murder (24,3%), assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm (8,7%), assault (12%), robbery (21,2%) and armed robbery (10,8%). The average increase is 11,6%.
Concerning sexual offences, rape increased with 9,8% and sexual assault with 4,1%.
The rise in contact crimes was 14,75% in the previous quarter.
With regard to the trio crimes, hijackings (compared to a year ago) increased with 2,8% and robberies at residential premises with 8,6%.
Robberies elsewhere decreased very slightly with 3%, which is basically the only ray of hope. Truck-jackings rose with 9,8%, though.
The spike in the so-called less serious crimes is just as significant.
This is the type of crime that ordinary South Africans deal with on a daily basis, like break-ins at their homes (up with 7,4%), theft of cars and motorbikes (3,3%), theft from vehicles (9,9%) and shoplifting (23,3%), which has a massive impact on daily life.
This means that in addition to the threat to people themselves, their property is also increasingly being targeted.
South Africans, who are already struggling due to the shrinking economy, must incur great expenses to secure the safety of themselves, their loved ones and property, while the police force offers less and less protection.
The FF Plus wants to see whether the police paid any attention to the finding of the Auditor-General (AG) last year that the figures released by the police in its crime statistics are not correct.
According to the AG, the reason is that the statistics often do not correlate to the number of crime dockets.
It frequently happens that people report crimes, but are never given a case number.
The FF Plus will address questions to the Minister about this to find out if any steps have been taken to rectify the problem.
Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 17 February 2023
