2007
3 July 2007
Today, at a media briefing at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the crime
statistics for the period 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007 were released by the
Minister for Safety and Security, Mr Charles Nqakula and the National
Commissioner of the South African Police Service (SAPS), Commissioner Jackie
Selebi.
When the crime figures for 2006/07, the SAPS financial year was from 1 April
2006 to 31 March 2007 were compared to those recorded during the 2005/06
financial year, the following findings were made:
Most of the contact-related, property-related and other serious crime trends
experienced decreases.
Eight serious crimes are grouped together as contact crime or violent crime
against the person. These crimes are murder, attempted murder, rape, assault
grievous bodily harm (GBH), common assault, indecent assault, aggravated
robbery and other robbery. These crimes account for 33,3% of South Africa's
recorded crime.
Six of the eight contact crimes, namely rape, attempted murder, assault GBH,
common assault, indecent assault and common robbery, decreased by between 8,7%
and 3,0%. These crimes are:
* common assault: -8,7%
* common robbery: -5,8%
* indecent assault: -5,5%
* rape: -5,2%
* assault GBH: -4,9%
* attempted murder: -3,0%
There was an overall decrease of 3,4% in contact crimes during the period
under review, which takes into account the crimes to be discussed in the next
paragraphs.
Two of the eight contact crimes, namely aggravated robbery and murder,
increased by 4,6% and 2,4% respectively.
Aggravated robberies, that is instances of robbery accompanied by violence
and/or the use of a weapon, and murder are obviously a cause of concern to the
South African Police Service and we are concentrating a great deal of our
efforts on implementing operations and interventions to prevent and combat this
particular crime trend.
Car hijackings and house robberies, two of the sub-categories of aggravated
robbery, increased by 6,0% and 25,4% respectively during the period under
review, accounting for just more than one out of five aggravated robberies.
Almost three quarters of all aggravated robberies are street/public robberies
which occur mainly in CBD areas and the mega-townships where people are robbed
of their money or other valuables at gun or knifepoint.
Since the 2003/04 financial year the following significant cumulative
decreases have been recorded:
* attempted murder: -34,4%
* common assault: -26,8%
* common robbery: -27,1%
* assault GBH: -17,9%
* aggravated robbery: -7,3%
* murder: -5,2%
* rape: -2,4%
* indecent assault: -1,5%
It is worth mentioning that a number of contact crimes are social in nature.
These crimes usually occur between people who know each other (e.g. friends,
acquaintances and relatives). Docket analysis indicated that 89% of both
assault GBH and common assault cases, 82% of murders and 76% of rapes covered
by the sample studied, involved people known to one another. In addition, 59%
of the attempted murders occurred under similar circumstances.
South Africa compares favourably with the rest of the Interpol countries
with regards to the incidence of property-related offences and other theft.
Reductions were recorded in the incidence of malicious damage to property
(-1,7%), burglary at residential premises (-5,9%), theft out of or from motor
vehicles (-11,8%), stock theft (-0,8%) and theft of motor vehicles (-0,7%).
Crimes heavily dependent on police action all increased significantly, which
is a positive sign and is welcomed. This clearly indicates that the SAPS and
other policing agencies are doing their utmost to combat these crimes, which
are also strong generators of other offences. Drug-related crime, illegal
possession of firearms and ammunition and driving under the influence of
alcohol or drugs increased by 8,2%, 5,6% and 14,3% respectively.
Whereas the number of people in police custody increased by 9,6%, the number
of escapes from police custody decreased by -18,3% which is encouraging as it
indicates that measures to curb escapes are increasingly becoming
effective.
All crime statistics released today, to station level, will be available on
the SAPS website: http://www.saps.gov.za.
The Ministry for Safety and Security and the South African Police Service
remain committed to serving the people of South Africa, to forging partnerships
which will contribute positively to safety and security in all communities and
to make every endeavour to reduce levels of crime.
Enquiries:
Sally de Beer
Cell: 082 779 8658
Issued by: South African Police Service
3 July 2007
