PARLIAMENT, October 24 (ANA) – South African police have failed to cope with violent crime, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) said on Tuesday following the release of the 2016/17 crime statistics.
The statistics, tabled in Parliament, show murder was up 1.8 percent – with 52 people being killed per day. Aggravated robbery was also up 6.4 percent.
“A steady rise in murder and armed robbery shows police are not getting a grip on serious violent crime in South Africa, despite a budget increased by almost 50 percent since 2011/12 to R87 billion,” the ISS said in a statement.
Other contact crimes decreased, including attempted murder (0.4 percent). The number of sexual offences reported to police was also down by 4.3 percent.
Assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm was down 6.7 percent while common assault saw a 5.2 percent decrease. Common robbery was down 1.3 percent.
The ISS expressed concern in the ongoing rise in the so-called trio crimes – which include carjackings (up 14.5 percent), home robberies (up 7.3 percent) and business robberies (up five percent).
“Hijacking of cars is up 77.5 percent in the past five years and up 14.5 percent in the year under review. There are now 46 cars hijacked a day in South Africa, more than half (52 percent) of them in Gauteng, where an average 24 cars are forcibly taken from drivers by armed gunmen daily.”
The institute blamed political interference, specifically in the appointment of police management, as one of the impediments to crime prevention.
“Ongoing political interference at all levels of the [South African Police Services] SAPS has severely weakened the organisation,” said Gareth Newham, the head of the ISS justice and violence prevention programme.
“If political interference is halted, then South Africans have good reason to expect better results from the police.”
South Africa has been without a national police commissioner since Riah Phiyega was suspended in 2015 after being criticised for her management of a labour dispute at the Lonmin mine in Marikana which resulted in the biggest lost of life in a single police operation in post-apartheid South Africa on August 16, 2012. Thirty four people were killed by police on this day.
Phiyega’s predecessors have also been mired in controversy.
Police Minister Fikile Mbalula admitted that instability at police management level, specifically at crime intelligence, had an adverse effect on policing in the country.
– African News Agency (ANA)
