Crime stats show drop in murders

2010-09-09 11:04

Pretoria - The country's murder rate showed its largest decline since 1995, falling below 17 000 for the past year, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said in Pretoria on Thursday.

"This is a significant achievement. Of all crimes this is one category that you cannot cheat," he told reporters at the release of national crime statistics.

The rate fell 8.6% in the past financial year ending March 31, 2010. For the year ended March 2009 there were 18 148 murders.

Attempted murders dropped 6.1%. The number of sexual crimes fell 4.4%. A total of 26 311 people were arrested in connection with sexual crimes.

He said the reintroduction of specialised units such as the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences, would contribute to decreasing this even further.

110 police officers killed

In the fight against crime 110 police officers lost their lives.

It was critical to remove corrupt police officers from the South African Police Service.

The overall drop in several crime categories was "satisfactory", but more needed to be done, he said.

The number of cash-in-transit heists fell 7.3% to 358 for 2009/10, resulting in 52 arrests.

Bank robberies decreased 8.8 percent, while car and truck-jacking saw a 6.8% decline.

Between 2008 and 2009, there were 14 915 carjackings, which dropped to 13 902.

- SAPA