IT’S MURDER LIVING IN SA

population since 2006.

However, he emphasised the role of communities in helping the police bring down the figures, saying the processing of the White Paper on policing, which envisages deeper involvement of community policing forums, would be vital to success.

DA spokesman on police Zakhele Mbhele said his party was alarmed by the significant increases in crimes that South Africans feared most.

“Crimes such as sexual assault, murder, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and hijacking are the crimes that keep South Africans in constant fear and awake at night. These are the crimes nightmares are made of,” Mbhele said.

The SAPS was chronically under-resourced, under-trained, under-equipped and under-staffed.

“This impacts directly on the SAPS’s ability to make meaningful inroads in reducing crime,” he said.

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union ( Popcru) said the statistics reflected more of a social problem than a police problem.

“A greater portion of the prison population in our country is increasingly youth, therefore reflecting the many social frustrations like unemployment, drug and substance abuse, all of which have been identified as part of the causal factors for aggressive crimes such as armed robbery, house break-ins, theft and murder,” Popcru spokesman Richard Mamabolo said.