SA’s danger levels rising

South Africans are less safe and more likely to be attacked and killed because President Jacob Zuma does not want a strong, professional SA Police Service with competent leaders.

That’s the damning indictment from the Institute for Security Studies’ Gareth Newham after the release of the crime statistics yesterday. “The only two categories we think are important to follow, because they are the most reliable, are murder and aggravated robbery,” he said.

Nationally, murder went up 1.8%, or 343 cases, to 19 016 people killed in 201617, a 10-year high. Aggravated robbery also hit a 10-year peak with 140 956 cases reported, 8 429 more than last year. “We know from the Victims of Crime Survey (VCS) conducted by Statistics SA that for murder, more than 90% of cases are reported and in the cases of robbery reportage is also as high, so those numbers are more accurate.”

Newham said the other figures, such as for assault and sexual assault, were very unreliable. “We know from VCS that more and more victims of these crimes do not report them to the police, so the most likely reason there’s been a reduction in those types of crimes is not because there’s been an actual reduction in violence, there’s just been fewer people reporting them.”

This, he added, was directly linked to declining levels of trust in the police.

Richard Phillips, an expert in cash management and logistics, said cash-related crime had again increased. “With a record high of 20 680 armed robberies against business recorded in the latest crime statistics, South Africa is experiencing 57 attacks per day,” he said. Roleplayers in the cash-in-transit industry were talking to each other, but the lack of intelligence was a problem.

“In the last 12 months, we’ve seen more than 300% increase in bombing attacks against retailers with cash devices,” Phillips said.

Institute of Race Relations’ crime analyst Kerwin Lebone, who has tracked crime and violence statistics for more than 15 years, said: “The police are overwhelmed and failing to hold back the criminal onslaught directed at citizens.”