Hijacking survey shock

2003-10-15 08:40

Lizel Steenkamp

Pretoria - A shocking analysis of car and truck hijackings in South Africa found that 102 111 cars and 29 089 trucks were hijacked in the country between 1996 and 2002.

The research project of Technikon SA's department of public safety and criminal law into hijackings found that vehicle hijackings increased by 18.8% from 1996 to 2002. Truck hijackings decreased by 65.9% in the same period.

Technikon SA found that only one less hijacking was reported in 2002 compared to 2001.

"The perception created in the police's annual report was that hijackings decreased and this was founded on a ratio per 100 000 of the population.

There was no literal decrease in the number of vehicles that were hijacked," said the research report.

Gauteng was worst hit

The police's annual report, published in September, indicated that hijacking of cars and trucks decreased by 20% from April 2002 to March 2003, compared to the previous year (interpreted per 100 000 of the population).

Police also claimed hijackings had dropped by 33.7% in the past nine years.

Rudolph Zinn of Technikon SA found that Gauteng was worst hit by hijackings in the past six years, with KwaZulu-Natal second.

During his research, Zinn interviewed 30 convicted hijackers and found they were responsible for 423 hijackings in total.

These convicted criminals confessed to 1 889 other crimes in a 4½-year period.

"Some of them literally had to do calculations to add it all up - I had to give them pen and paper."

The results showed these people committed an average of 105 crimes each before they were arrested for the first time, said Zinn on Tuesday.

- Beeld