{"id":10498,"date":"2013-09-19T13:41:13","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T13:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10498"},"modified":"2013-09-19T13:41:13","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T13:41:13","slug":"18-years-of-crime-counting-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10498","title":{"rendered":"18 years of crime \u2013 counting the dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kevin_King\"<\/a>by Kevin King<\/p>\n

[followbutton username=’djkevking’ count=’true’ lang=’en’ theme=’light’]<\/p>\n

With the release of the latest crime stats imminent, I\u2019d like to recap what\u2019s happened in the last 18 years in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Homicide<\/h3>\n

Firstly, it\u2019s 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.\u00a0 There is a very thin line between murder and culpable homicide but fact is that death is the result.<\/p>\n

In the 1994\/1995 year, 38,525 homicides were reported by the SAPS.\u00a0 25,965 murders and 12,560 culpable homicides.\u00a0 105.55 killed per day.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The most unexpected discovery I made when analysing the stats was regarding the ratio of culpable homicides to total homicides.\u00a0 There is a clear, undeniabletrend in the last 18 years.\u00a0 From 33% in 1994\/1995, the ratio increases consistently each year until 2011\/2012 where it ends on 43%.\u00a0 There are three possible reasons for this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 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.<\/li>\n
  2. 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.<\/li>\n
  3. 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.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Serious contact crimes<\/h3>\n

    5,216,629 reported victims of serious contact crimes in the 18 years from 1994\/1995 to 2011\/2012.\u00a0 That comprises:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. 597,900 victims of homicide who are now dead<\/li>\n
    2. 443,551 victims of attempted murder<\/li>\n
    3. 4,175,178 victims of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      There is a thin line between category 2 and 3 but fact remains, there were 794 cases per day where someone\u2019s life was in serious danger.<\/p>\n

      Sexual assault<\/h3>\n

      Always a horrific stat, 1,111,425 reported cases of sexual offences took place in the 18 years from 1994\/1995 to 2011\/2012.\u00a0 As mentioned in my previous articles, cases of sexual assault are severely under-reported in South Africa.\u00a0 So here is a look at estimates of actual sexual assaults in the last 18 years based on the reported cases by the SAPS:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Conservative estimate (1 in 5 reported) \u2013 5,557,125 (846 per day)<\/li>\n
      2. Moderate estimate (1 in 10 reported) \u2013 11,114,250 (1,692 per day)<\/li>\n
      3. Aggressive estimate (1 in 20 reported) \u2013 22,228,500 (3,383 per day)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Most surveys and experts indicate that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 cases of sexual assault are reported.<\/p>\n

        Arrests made, where do the criminals go?<\/h3>\n

        According to NathiMthethwa, over 800,000 arrests were made in the 2012\/2013 year for \u201cserious crimes\u201d and 352,513 of these were convicted,\u00a0I\u2019m however surprised that Nathi never expected anyone to do the maths\u2026<\/p>\n

        Earlier this year our prison population stood at 156,000 and that was at 130% over capacity.\u00a0 So Nathi, where do these serious criminals go?\u00a0 352,513 arrested and convicted in only ONE year but our prisons were over capacity before these convictions?\u00a0 Assuming all these serious criminals stay behind bars for 2 years, where will next year\u2019s 350,000 serious criminals go?\u00a0 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?\u00a0 Taking your stats Nathi, there should be over 2 million criminals in jail for serious offences\u2026<\/p>\n

        [followbutton username=’djkevking’ count=’true’ lang=’en’ theme=’light’]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        by Kevin King [followbutton username=’djkevking’ count=’true’ lang=’en’ theme=’light’] With the release of the latest crime stats imminent, I\u2019d like to recap what\u2019s happened in the last 18 years in South Africa. Homicide Firstly, it\u2019s interesting to note that the SAPS and the media only report the murder rate but ignore the actual number of victims … Continue reading “18 years of crime \u2013 counting the dead”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,3382],"tags":[1214,2372,40,553,6374],"class_list":["post-10498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-kevin-king","tag-crime-stats","tag-homicide","tag-murder","tag-nathi-mthethwa","tag-sexual-assult"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Kevin_King.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10500,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10498\/revisions\/10500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}