Registration of crimes has impact on statistics
A CRIME Intelligence report before the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry reveals how some officers at the township’s police stations made errors in the registration of crimes that impacted on crime statistics.
An investigation was launched after “ghost tendencies” had resulted from a “historical manipulation” of crime registration.
In his introduction to the report, Crime Research and Statistics in the Crimes Intelligence in 2012, then acting divisional commissioner in crime intelligence, Major-General CP de Kock, said errors were being rectified but were continuing.
The investigation at Khayelitsha and surrounding stations found that in 2009 at the Site B Khayelitsha police station, 31.2 percent of cases inspected had been incorrectly registered.
It decreased to 17.5 percent in 2011.
At the Harare station, 15.8 percent of cases in 2011 had been erroneously registered.
The Lingelethu police station had an error rate of 18.5 percent in 2005, and it was
Aggravated robberies are registered as common robberies
down to 15.1 percent in 2011.
“If crimes are either not registered or registered incorrectly (whether intentional or not) and the situation improves at a later stage, this can also affect crime trends.
“Crimes Research and Statistics has in the past found that most incorrect registrations, whether this is done intentionally or unintentionally, occur in particular robbery cases (both aggravated and common robbery) and the sub-category of robbery,” De Kock wrote.
He said the mistakes had a bearing on the following:
Somebody is killed or wounded during an aggravated robbery and the murder and/or attempted murder is registered, but not the aggravated robbery.
Aggravated robberies are registered as common robberies and the other way around.
Aggravated robberies are registered but in the sub-field where the types of aggravated robbery should be recorded, nothing is indicated.
The effect is that, for example, a hijacking, business robbery and/or a house robbery then becomes a street/public robbery.
“Pressure is exerted on a station commander by provincial or cluster management to reduce (for example) hijacking or business robbery, with the effect that one sub-type of aggravated robbery is registered as another,” De Kock added.
He said the decrease in the tendency of erroneous registration of crimes was a result of the persistence in checking data integrity and regularly forwarding findings of such checks to the provincial commissioners.
The office had managed to push down the national error rate from 30 to 10 percent in the last five years.
“The unfortunate consequence of such an action is that crime statistics will increase, even without any real increase in crime,” De Kock said.
Today the commission of inquiry enters its fourth week during which testimony will be heard from two station commanders, from Harare and Khayelitsha stations.
On Friday, Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer, provincial commissioner of the Western Cape, will give evidence at the hearing.
The Social Justice Coalition last week called for station commander Colonel Mike Reitz, commissioner at Lingelethu West, to be fired following testimony he delivered at the inquiry.
On Friday, Reitz faced a barrage of questions from attorneys representing the organisations that complained against police inefficiencies and a breakdown in relations between them and residents.
Reitz said he needed more resources “but I am satisfied that I am effectively managing the crime in my area”.
He said he was dedicated to his job and gave everything to it.
It was not fair that he was being crucified “like Jesus” when he was trying to help the commission.