Crime stats 'thin on analysis'

2004-10-20 22:19

Cape Town - Police must explain why certain crime categories have dropped if they want South Africans to believe the recently released statistics, parliament's safety and security portfolio committee heard on Wednesday.

Anton du Plessis, head of the Institute for Security Studies' crime and justice programme, told MPs decreases in murder, hijacking, and cash-in-transit robberies needed to be explained.

According to the SAPS's annual report for 2003/04, murder dropped by more than 10% nationally, and by 25% in the Western Cape over the previous year.

Hijackings were down by 48% and cash-in-transit robberies by 50%, Du Plessis said.

"We expected a decline in most categories, but we did not expect it to be so big.

"We are doing further studies to actually try and explain why that happened. I want to know why murder dropped by 25% in the Western Cape.

"I don't know if we can say, 'well, it was Operation Crackdown'. The annual report is very thin on analysis," Du Plessis said, adding that "many South African still don't believe it".

He said the analysis was the most important part of the report to explain why certain crime categories had decreased, but it had been left out.

"We think that is the very crucial part of the report because people who read it... quote directly from it. There is not enough analysis, there is not enough explanation.

Sustainability

"We are concerned about the sustainability of these decreases, especially the big ones," Du Plessis told the committee.

Most South Africans were much more fearful of crime in 2003 compared to 1998, he said. "Public perception are crucial, they are key."

Asked why many South Africans did not believe the statistics, Du Plessis said it could be a combination of the moratorium placed on the release of statistics a few years ago, or general pessimism.

"Some of it is justified, some of it not. People, generally speaking, don't trust crime statistics.

"That's why we are saying there should be more analysis in the annual report so that it's not just the crime statistics that are coming out, but there is actually an explanation of what is happening behind those decreases."

He said although he personally believed most of statistics, he would conduct further research "as to why some of the decreases were as big".

"I would like to understand them better before I can say I'm fully in agreement with them.

Population ratios

"The other reason I don't believe all decreases is because the reporting phenomena, for example in the rape issue, needs to be explained further."

Another concern he had was how the police determined their ratios and population growth.

"They say that the population has grown by 30% in the past 10 years; some estimates say it's growing only by 1.8%.

"I would want more explanation about how those population ratios and population growth curves are determined," he said.

- SAPA