|
Nqakula: Crime is down
17/10/2006 18:50 - (SA)
Cape Town - Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula insisted on Tuesday that crime is decreasing, but acknowledged that citizens felt it not to be the case.
Responding in the National Assembly to a statement by the Freedom Front Plus's Corne Mulder about crime levels, Nqakula said the criminal justice system ministers still believed the law enforcement agencies "are going to be able to deal with the crime that is happening in South Africa".
"Of course, we do accept that many, many South Africans are worried about the levels of crime.
"But, I believe that indeed, with law enforcement agencies working in the way that they are at this time, not alone, but together with the masses of our people who have now, rather than what the situation was in the past, come forward to say [they] want to be part and parcel of crime fighting in South Africa, that gives me the hope that things are going to change in the future."
SA is a dangerous place
There were many people who had come forward and given information about criminals who had committed many serious crimes.
Between July 15 and September 15 police, as a consequence of that information, arrested 384 people connected to 687 cases - all of them serious and violent crimes.
"But I hope you understand what we are dealing with when I give you the next figures," he said.
Of the 384 people arrested, 85 had been linked to 400 cases, meaning their arrest had dealt a serious blow against repeat offenders, particularly in serious and violent crimes.
"But the story does not end there. From the 15th of July to the 3rd of October, when you add all of those numbers, we arrested 529 criminals connected to more than 800 cases."
While acknowledging that the families of crime victims found it difficult to believe crime was dropping, it was not correct to say crime levels in South Africa were rising. "They are going down," Nqakula said.
"For instance, if you take the matter of DNA and look at some of these people that have been arrested, they were connected to those cases via DNA and some of the clues we have picked up from the crime scenes... at the level of technology, South Africa is advancing.
"I also believe that the future will be better because the entire criminal justice system is in itself undergoing changes. There's a review of the system," Nqakula said.
In a member's statement earlier, Mulder called on government to actively intervene and prepare and implement a new national anti-crime strategy encompassing the whole criminal justice system.
He said that according to the latest police statistics - for April 1 2003 to March 31, 2006 - 2 546 294 people were victims of violent crime.
"That means that on average 848 765 people fall victim to violent crime annually."
Yet, Nqakula was saying "the future is rosy concerning crime in South Africa".
These statistics proved that South Africa was a dangerous country to live in.
|
News
