crime stats – praag.org

ANC, DA want to scrub SA’s crime stats

The government intends to review the Criminal Procedure Act with a view to expunging the criminal records of some in order to give criminals “a second chance”.

Criminal records had a “detrimental effect on successful social integration” the minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha told parliament during his budget vote.

Although the act was reviewed recently, around 2009, Masutha nevertheless said “perhaps it is time to open the dialogue on criminal records”.

But Masutha said the move would “not compromise public safety” if the focus remains “on those who committed minor and non-violent crimes”.

Earlier, he told a media briefing that offenders could apply to have their records expunged 10 years after the offence was committed. He said this period might even be reduced.

“Ten years can be a lifetime, especially to a young person,” Masutha said.

The DA’s James Selfe supported the obvious new measures to scrub South Africa’s high crime stats: “We believe that a criminal record is a powerful inhibitor to being integrated back into society.”

Crime stats: Farm attacks trending

It is a dark day for the country when its National Commissioner claims that crime is under control, while the murder rate has risen to 16,259 cases per year. This means that almost two murders a day more occurred to bring the total number of murders committed daily to almost 45!

Farm murders shows an even more alarming picture. In the same period farm murders increased by 34% to 68 in 2012/2013 compared to the 50 murders in 2011/2012. Farm attacks increased from 112 cases to 176 cases. Farm attacks in fact are violent crimes against people and not on property. Therefor it can be assumed that many of these attacks are nothing less than attempted murder, which were successfully averted.

“What is even more disturbing is the apparent ignorance of the police in this regard. On the police`s official website the page titled ‘Farm Attacks` under `Crime Prevention` has been ‘under construction’ for months now, leaving the impression that the police do not regard this category of crime as a seriousness matter,” said Mr Henry Geldenhuys, Deputy President of TAU SA and Chairman of the Safety and Security Committee. “Because the police stubbornly refuse to list farm murders as a separate crime category in their statistics, they are not even aware of this alarming increase in farm attacks. Furthermore it has to be borne in mind that TAU SA`s database on farm attacks and farm murders is probably incomplete because it relies on the feedback of members or on media reports which are then verified. Therefore the true picture could be worse,” says Mr Geldenhuys.

Since April 1 this year to date TAU SA`s database lists 37 murders and 110 farm attacks. If this trend was to continue until the end of the current year 74 murders and 220 attacks could be expected, which will represent a further increase of 24%.

“The fact that the National Commissioner considers crime to be under control indicates that farmers should not expect any increased police interest in their problems, and therefore should continue their need to ensure that they are versed in self defence and the upgrading of their physical safety- and security measures,” said Mr Geldenhuys.

18 years of crime – counting the dead

by Kevin King

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With the release of the latest crime stats imminent, I’d like to recap what’s happened in the last 18 years in South Africa.

Homicide

Firstly, it’s interesting to note that the SAPS and the media only report the murder rate but ignore the actual number of victims killed in homicides, the act of killing another human being illegally. There is a very thin line between murder and culpable homicide but fact is that death is the result.

In the 1994/1995 year, 38,525 homicides were reported by the SAPS. 25,965 murders and 12,560 culpable homicides. 105.55 killed per day.

In total, for the last 18 years including the 2011/2012 year, 597,500 were killed in homicides at a rate of 91 per day.

In the last reported statistics, the SAPS reported 27,397 homicides in the 2011/2012 year, a slight decrease from the previous year and a 29% decrease from the4 1994/1995 year.

The most unexpected discovery I made when analysing the stats was regarding the ratio of culpable homicides to total homicides. There is a clear, undeniabletrend in the last 18 years. From 33% in 1994/1995, the ratio increases consistently each year until 2011/2012 where it ends on 43%. There are three possible reasons for this:

There has been a steady change in the courts/law, every year, for the last 18 years, that has seen a greater percentage of homicides being classified as culpable homicide instead of murder, thus the law is being more lenient.
Criminals themselves have been changing their behaviour, every year, for the last 18 years, in a manner that has seen them committing more unintentional homicides.
Homicides are being incorrectly classified as culpable homicides in order to make the murder rate look rosier, because as mentioned, the murder rate is the main indicator of the crime situation in South Africa and the only figure that is reported, so there is motive to manipulate this figure.

Serious contact crimes

5,216,629 reported victims of serious contact crimes in the 18 years from 1994/1995 to 2011/2012. That comprises:

597,900 victims of homicide who are now dead
443,551 victims of attempted murder
4,175,178 victims of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm

There is a thin line between category 2 and 3 but fact remains, there were 794 cases per day where someone’s life was in serious danger.

Sexual assault

Always a horrific stat, 1,111,425 reported cases of sexual offences took place in the 18 years from 1994/1995 to 2011/2012. As mentioned in my previous articles, cases of sexual assault are severely under-reported in South Africa. So here is a look at estimates of actual sexual assaults in the last 18 years based on the reported cases by the SAPS:

Conservative estimate (1 in 5 reported) – 5,557,125 (846 per day)
Moderate estimate (1 in 10 reported) – 11,114,250 (1,692 per day)
Aggressive estimate (1 in 20 reported) – 22,228,500 (3,383 per day)

Most surveys and experts indicate that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 cases of sexual assault are reported.

Arrests made, where do the criminals go?

According to NathiMthethwa, over 800,000 arrests were made in the 2012/2013 year for “serious crimes” and 352,513 of these were convicted, I’m however surprised that Nathi never expected anyone to do the maths…

Earlier this year our prison population stood at 156,000 and that was at 130% over capacity. So Nathi, where do these serious criminals go? 352,513 arrested and convicted in only ONE year but our prisons were over capacity before these convictions? Assuming all these serious criminals stay behind bars for 2 years, where will next year’s 350,000 serious criminals go? Because I promise you now, at the end of the 2013/2014 year there will not be more than 160,000 prisoners in jail, so how can there be 352,513 arrested, convicted and jailed for serious crimes, unless most of these never see a day behind bars? Taking your stats Nathi, there should be over 2 million criminals in jail for serious offences…

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Leave our crime alone!

by Kevin King

We are a very proud nation. Not when we rape our women, children and infants, murder each other in droves, commit racial, xenophobic and homophobic atrocities, but when we become all patriotic and go on the defensive after our failings are pointed out by outsiders, in this case the Americans.

Preceding Obama’s visit to our country, the US issued a crime warning to tourists stating that “violent and confrontational crime is a major concern [in South Africa]” and goes on to point out Pretoria, Joburg, Durban and Cape Town as “critical crime threat spots”. Many South Africans of course didn’t like this and launched their own counter attack at the US on social media. To sum up the types of responses:

Crime happens everywhere
US is number 1 in crime
SA crime is blown out of proportion

Now coming from a corporate environment I refuse to stick my head in the sand and deny any problems without doing some research. In that way we can identify if we have a problem and if so, take corrective action.

2011/2012 Crime Research & Statistics – SAPS

Murder – 15,609
Culpable homicide – 11,788
Attempted murder – 14,859
Assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm – 192,651
Robbery with aggravating circumstances – 101,203
Total sexual offences – 64,514

Notes

Our murder rate is reported as 42.7 per day. After including culpable homicide there are 75 new bodies in the morgue per day. This might explain why Interpol reports our murder rate as 80+ per day.

A total of 400,624 from the above violent crimes happened in just one year. Over the last 5 years this figure is close to 2,000,000, conservatively speaking. There are about 160,000 people in jail at this moment (highest in Africa and 9th in the world). Where are these criminals if they’re not in jail?

The above crimes are reported crimes and some members of SAPS have been busted for understating crime statistics which means that the actual number of crimes is actually higher. For instance, it is estimated that in SA, only 1 in 20 incidents of rape are reported. 64,514 x 20 = 1,290,280… per year… and thus claimed the title of Rape Capital of the World.

There are about 53 million people living in SA. Based on the reported violent crimes above and the average South African’s life expectancy, a shocking 52.6, each South African has a 40% chance of being a victim of violent crime in their lifetime.

I have left out the other major categories of crime such as common robbery, common assault, common hijacking, fraud, arson, corruption etc. in order to deal with violent crime only. Taking these into account the average South African will almost certainly be a victim of crime in their lifetime.

Now I’m not going to tell you what to think, you can make up your own mind on if we have a problem. Ignoring the rest of the world, I’d expect that any reasonable person would find the above statistics unacceptable. Personally, I think they are appalling.

Moving on, we should maybe compare ourselves to the rest of the world. Now the rest of the world is pretty big so I’m not going to go into details of all other countries, just a select few, starting with the slandering Americans. (Is the truth slander?)

Murder in America

Firstly, it should be known that Americans themselves confess that the USA is a violent country. Secondly, the USA has a population of about 314 million, six times our population, thus we can expect more crime to occur there. Thirdly, the USA has the highest gun ownership in the world, with 88.8 guns per 100 people according to the UN, with SA lying in 50th place with 12.7 guns per 100 people, a further indicator that they might be more violent than we are. So here are the stats:

Total murders/homicides – 14,612 (2011), 14,748 (2010)

Yes, a country with six times our population and seven times more guns has fewer murders than we do.

Murder in other places

Now because people who complain about crime are told to leave to Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc. we might as well mention these places.

Canada – 598 murders in 2011
New Zealand – 39 murders in 2011
UK – 663 in 2011/2012
Australia – 229 in 2010

One thing is very evident when you visit these places. There are no high walls, no palisade fencing or electric fencing. In fact, residential electric fencing is illegal in these parts. There are no armed response units, police are all that’s necessary. It does not appear that these people live in fear behind their white picket fences.

Hopefully the above information will enlighten some as to what the current situation is in our country. The more you know your country the more can be done about its problems.

South African government claims crime is decreasing

South Africa’s murder rate has dropped by 3.1 percent in the past financial year, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa announced on Thursday.

Releasing the 2011/12 annual crime statistics at Parliament, Mthethwa said in 2004/5 more than 18,000 people were murdered — now down to less than 16,000.

There had been a 27.6 percent reduction over an eight year period –2004/5 to 2011/12, he said.

Sexual offences had dropped by 3.7 percent.

“We need to emphasise that, as government, we are, however, still concerned about the scourge of rape in our country.

“Rape decreased [by] 1.9 percent, but is [still] unacceptably high,” Mthethwa said.

On organised crime, Mthethwa said this category was showing a downward trend.

“The most highly organised forms of aggravated robberies — namely carjacking, cash-in-transit heists, and bank robbery — have experienced decreases,” he said.

Breaking down the figures, Mthethwa said carjacking decreased by 23.6 percent in 2010/11. A further decrease of 11.9 percent followed in 2011/12.

Cash-in-transit robberies were down by 37.5 percent, and bank robberies by 10.3 percent in 2011/12.

House robberies decrease by 1.9 percent, but business robberies continued to show an upward trend, jumping 7.5 percent.

Mthethwa noted an increase in small business robberies.

“We have now finalised a strategy to combat and reduce robberies at small business… we will be engaging relevant parties to ensure implementation of the strategy within next few weeks,” he said.