150 rapes a day in SA

2006-09-27 21:43

Carol Hills, Louis Oelofse and Donwald Pressley

Pretoria - South Africa's official rape figures indicate a drop to 54 926 incidents in 2005/'06 - from 55 114 in the previous year.

This represents 150.4 rapes a day.

Cash-in-transit heists have increased 74.1% in the past year, the SA Police Service revealed on Wednesday, releasing South Africa's annual crime statistics.

And, the stats also showed the cities which had the worst rates for certain types of crimes.

For statistical purposes, six contact crimes were grouped together - murder, attempted murder, indecent assault, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, common assault and rape.

The areas worst affected by these contact crimes were Hillbrow in Johannesburg, followed by KwaMashu and Umlazi in Durban.

Cash-in-transit heists increased

Central business districts (CBD) were the places most affected by robberies.

Car hijackings were up 3.1%, truck hijackings 10.9%, and bank robberies 1.7%, said police crime information head Chris de Kock at the Union Buildings.

Cash-in-transit heists increased from 220 to 383 - a phenomenon receiving urgent attention in partnership with the SA Banking Risk Information Centre.

Car hijackings went from 12 434 to 12 825; truck hijackings from 930 to 829; and bank robberies from 58 to 59.

In its annual report, the police said media reporting gave the impression of an increase in multiple murders in single incidents.

"Increases in the incidence of robberies at business and residential premises, cash-in-transit robberies and carjacking create circumstances for this to occur.

Criminals 'defending themselves'

"It seems that people are being fatally wounded during incidents like this because criminals increasingly use heavy-calibre firearms. The number of criminals involved in such incidents has also increased.

"The chances are that the perpetrators of crime will shoot bystanders to 'defend themselves' or otherwise facilitate escape.

"In addition, victims of robberies and car hijackings increasingly tend to defend themselves with firearms against robbers."

The police said it also appeared that family murders were increasing, and that they now affected communities with larger families, resulting in a higher murder rate.

Drug-related crimes increased by 13.2% and driving under the influence of alcohol by 9.9%.

However, it was emphasised that increases in crimes "heavily dependent on police action for detection" -such as these - showed that police were carrying out their duties proactively.

The police said they had tried, but failed to achieve decreases of between 7% and 10% in contact crimes such as murders, rapes and indecent assaults. They remained "cause for concern".

Murder rate down in 11 years

Murders had decreased 2% to 18 528 incidents in 2005/'06; rapes to 54 926 incidents; and indecent assault 3.8% to 9 805.

However, the murder rate had shown an overall decrease in the past 11 years.

De Kock said much contact crime took place between people who knew each other.

This was the case in 81.5% of murders, 59.4% of attempted murders, 75.9% of rapes, 89% of assaults with intent to do grievous bodily harm and 89.3% of common assault.

In 61.9% percent of murders, the victims and perpetrators were related to each other, he said, adding that there seemed to be problems in the country's domestic situation.

"No conventional policing can prevent this type of social crime... you'd have to have a policeman in every house," said De Kock.

Drink a major cause

"The only thing that can prevent this is socio-economic development - large-scale, intense, socio-economic development to change the living conditions of the people in this country."

Crime shot up at weekends when people drank and got into arguments.

Murders were particularly high around clubs, taverns and places where people drank, said De Kock, using Hillbrow as an example, but adding: "Go to Pretoria central and you find it's the same; go to Tembisa you find it's the same."

"This is the type of pattern you find in South Africa," he said. 'Hopefully we'll achieve a 7% or 10% (decrease) in the next year."

According to the report, arson decreased by 7.5% and malicious damage to property by 4.9%."

Burglaries are down

Of the property-related crimes, only theft of motor vehicles and motor cycles showed a marginal increase of 1.9%.

The other sub-categories showed a decrease: burglary at residential premises went down 5.5%, burglary at non-residential premises dropped 3.6%, theft from motor vehicles 6.9% and stock theft,12.6%.

The statistics cover the period from April 1 2005 to March 31 2006. - I-Net Bridge/Sapa

- News24