UNPACKING THE CRIME STATS

STATS: MURDERS INCREASED BY 1.4% TO 21 325 COMPARED WITH 21 022 THE PREVIOUS YEAR

Stats don’t reflect sense of insecurity experienced by farming community.

South Africans live in an increasingly violent environment, despite signs of a slowdown in the murder rate and the fact that bank robberies are at their lowest level since 1994. Crime expert at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Dr Johan Burger said the murder rate was statistically slowing to a point where he could foresee numbers begin to plateau in the next few years – but this did not take away from the fact that violent crimes were not showing signs of slowing.

These violent crimes contributed to the fear and anxiety faced by South Africans in their daily lives.

Police Minister Bheki Cele announced yesterday that overall crime levels were down in the 2019-2020 period compared with the previous year. Murder has increased by 1,4% compared with the previous year – from 21 022 counts to 21 325.

Sexual offences increased from 52 420 to 53 295.

Among crimes which had shown a sharp decline were robbery at residential premise – which went down from 22 431 in the previous year to

21 130, showing a 5.8% decline in the 20192020 period.

Attempted murder showed a 1.4% decline from 18 980 to 18 635.

“There is very little in the crime stats that will have a positive impact on our feelings of safety,” said Burger.

He said there had been some improvements in policing but the lockdown had changed the situation to such an extent that “we will probably only be able to see a year from now, what was really working”.

Crime expert Ian Cameron said: “If you look at murders in general, it can be quite a misleading statistic on its own. If you also consider the contact crimes which could have led to murder, it’s likely that everyone survived who could have been murdered.”

He said attempted murder had increased at almost the same rate as murder and while serious assault had decreased, common and aggravated robbery had gone up, showing “that violence in South Africa hasn’t shown a decrease”.

Lobby group AgriSA said the statistics “do not reflect the sense of insecurity experienced by the farming community. “The spate of farm attacks and murders and, especially the recent murders in the Vaalharts area, as well as the high levels of property-related crime, have brought the mood virtually to breaking point,” said Tommie Esterhuyse, chair of AgriSA’s centre of excellence: rural safety. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to manage the situation and it is important to take note of this.

“These and other incidents of violence which affect the farming community, as well as fellow South Africans on a daily basis, are strongly condemned.”

ISS researcher Gareth Newham said murder and armed robbery rose for the eighth consecutive year. These two categories gave the best indication of the state of public safety in SA.

“While the murder rate more than halved between 1994 and 2012, the latest figures show that since then, murder has increased by 37%, with an additional 5 771 murders in 2019-20 compared to 2012. Aggravated robbery is up 43%, with 43 221 more armed attacks in 2019-20 than eight years ago,” he said.

“Murder and armed robbery are not randomly distributed but have again been focused around known risk areas. That means police should have the ability to apply crime intelligence and analysis, evidence-based practices and targeted interventions to address these most serious crimes.” – simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

Crime has brought mood to breaking point