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22/07/2008 03:29 PM - (SA) False Bay safer than most Stephen Kihn
In Fish Hoek and Simon's Town, the statistics reflected an overall drop and stabilisation of crime on the previous year's figures (April 2006 to March 2007). Both stations are considered property crime-related stations, having low contact crime statistics, and in comparison to provincial and national crime figures, are considered two of the safest policing precincts to reside in. Superintendent Nico Francken, station commissioner of the Fish Hoek Police Station, says that although crime has decreased, further improvement is still required. Delgun Steel, chairperson of the Fish Hoek Valley Community Police Forum (CPF), feels the improvement can be attributed to increased cooperation between the police, the public and the CPF. "There are currently 19 registered neighbourhood watches in the area, working closely with the police, assisting one another. At the moment there is wonderful trust between the neighbourhood watches and the police and I would like to give a big thank you to the Fish Hoek police, who always have an open-door policy," he said. Muizenberg Police Station's notable success has been the reduction of residential burglaries from 1001 (in 2006 to 2007) to 849 in the past financial year. Despite the 15,5% improvement, the station still has the eighth highest number of residential burglaries in the province. Station commissioner Senior Superintendent Enolium Joseph cre?dits the drop to enhanced cooperation between the police, local security companies, neighbourhood watches and law enforcement. The theft of motor vehicles and motorcycles also came down, from 293 to 257 cases. This was accompanied by a drop in theft out of motor vehicles. Notable increases include the ca?tegory "assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm", rising from 119 to 146 cases. Common robbery also increased from 90 to 122 incidents. "Most of the contact crimes occur over the weekend, when alcohol is involve," Joseph says. "We are clamping down on shebeens, where these problems can occur. Many of these incidents are constrained to areas such as Vrygrond and include domestic violence." Joseph says common robbery and in particular opportunistic street robberies are often motivated by the pervasive presence of cellphones. "In the four months of this new financial year, about 60% of the street robberies involve cellphones. I caution anybody not to buy cellphones from people off the street, as they may be stolen," he says. Ocean View Police Station's statistics reflect both decreases and spikes across the different crime categories. Some of the successes include a drop in the theft of motor vehicles and motor cycles from 47 to 24 cases. Burglaries at residential properties decreased by 9,4% from 422 to 382 cases and common assault dropped substantially from 304 to 235 cases. Areas of concern include a significant increase in "assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm" cases. The number of incidents almost doubled from 83 to 163 cases. Murders more than doubled from 11 to 25 cases. Superintendent Jayce Naidoo, who has been station commissioner of the Ocean View police since May this year, says every effort will be made to improve on these areas. "We will try to as far as possible bring the murders down within the new financial year. That is a given. "The methodology with contact crimes is to focus on liquor related offences. The serious assaults are often associated with alcohol. We are therefore going to focus on clo?sing shebeens and arresting people that are drunk in public before incidents can arise," he said. Another major concern is that drug related crime had increased by 25% from 173 to 233 cases. "Currently we are engaged in an ongoing operation to target drug houses. We are finding that we are having most successes through stop and searches. "You find that people are often found with the drugs in the vicinity of the drug dealers," he said.
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