Murder up, rape up…. crime statistics make grim reading
THE National Crime Statistics for the fourth quarter of the 2020/2021 financial year make for bleak reading and have forced the SAPS to dig deep and put their shoulder to the wheel, Police Minister Bheki Cele said yesterday.
Cele was announcing the crime statistics from October 1 to December 31, which indicated there was a a 6.6% increase in murders in a three-month period: 389 more people were killed compared with the same period of the 2019/2020 financial year.
Murder and rape cases had climbed, and Cele said the townships of Inanda and uMlazi in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape’s Lusikisiki police stations recorded the highest incidents of rape.
“Mpumalanga recorded the highest increase (in murders) of 13.7%. Limpopo, North West and the Northern Cape recorded a decline in murder cases; 193 of the murders were as a result of domestic violence,” Cele said.
He said the top four causes were arguments, robberies at a household and businesses, mob justice and gang-related killings, with 2 481 people murdered in public places.
“A total of 1 643 murders occurred at the home of the victim or of the perpetrator, while liquor outlets were the third most likely place to be killed.”
Overall, contact crimes committed against a person decreased by 1.4%.”
A 5% increase has been recorded for sexual offences. More than 4 900 of rapes took place at the victim’s or rapist’s home, while 570 were domestic violence-related; 547 of rape cases in this category involved female victims, and 23, males.
“Gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide remain a priority crime for the SAPS. We are on a daily basis improving our services and responses, at station level.
“As the SAPS we are motivated that numerous life sentences have been handed down for crimes committed against women and children. In the three months of reporting, the FCS (Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences units) secured 129 life sentences. I really hope these jail terms also reassure victims of GBV of our efforts as law enforcement to bring them justice,” Cele.
He said that assault figures showed that “violence stalks our society” and in many cases the violence is aggravated by alcohol abuse.
SOUTH Africa’s crime figures for the last quarter of last year were released yesterday. They make for woeful reading: murder is up by 6.6%, sexual violence increased by 5% – on top of already high statistics.
It’s something that’s all the more galling given that we are living under lockdown conditions and there is a curfew. Our police are ostensibly enforcing this – as Police Minister Bheki Cele was always quick to remind us throughout 2020.
His officers arrested a phenomenal number of people for breaking lockdown restrictions last year, yet 2481 people still managed to get themselves murdered in public between October and December.
Cele famously told the nation he didn’t even want married couples to kiss in bed at night – instead, 1643 people were killed in their homes.
A staggering 12218 people were reported raped in the last quarter of last year, yet there is still a shortage of rape kits at police stations – a vital tool in collecting evidence for the possible prosecution of the rapist.
Announcing the crime statistics yesterday, Cele vowed that the police would have to “dig deep and put their shoulder to the wheel” to turn the situation around. The day before he spent in Nkandla, having tea with a man who stands accused of corruption, state capture and contempt of court. He wasn’t there to arrest him.
Perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps if he stopped posing and offering pithy sound bites, if he stopped going for the low-hanging fruit like a possessed classroom monitor and actually set the example, then maybe we would see a decline in crime figures.
Cele’s never had it so good; people’s freedom of movement and association are curtailed like rarely before – and still people are not safe.
That’s his legacy.