Gauteng SA's robbery hotspot
2009-10-09 08:39
Pretoria - People in Gauteng have twice as much chance of being the victim of a house robbery than those in other parts of the country.
This is according to Gareth Newham, a community safety adviser in the Gauteng legislature.
Newham was speaking at a seminar concerning the latest crime statistics at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria on Thursday.
However, a senior researcher at the ISS, Dr Johan Burger, discouraged people from leaving South Africa.
"If people want to emigrate, they should rather go to other provinces where home robberies are less common. Don't leave the country."
Safest province
According to him, the safest province is the Northern Cape, followed by the Free State and Limpopo.
Nkoshilo Seimela of the police's research and statistics unit said that according to the top 20 police stations where the most home robberies are reported, 13 are in Gauteng, five in KwaZulu-Natal, one in North West and one in the Eastern Cape.
Six of the top 10 police stations are in Gauteng (Sandton, Honeydew, Wierdabrug, Midrand, Douglasdale and Booysens) and four in KwaZulu-Natal.
Newham said the latest crime statistics show that, between April 1 2008 and March 31 2009, there were 140 home robberies per day.
"Firearms were also the most common choice of weapon used in the criminal activity, also in vehicle hijackings, cash-in-transit heists and business robberies.
"And criminals won't stop until they are caught, since that's their livelihood," said Newham.
House robberies up in all provinces
Burger warned that, unless a method is found to curb home robberies, vehicle hijackings and business robberies, these crimes will continue to increase.
"It makes an impact on people's lives, on deciding whether to should stay in the country or move, and also whether they should buy property here. It also has a psychological impact on people's lives."
He said the number of house robberies have increased in all nine provinces. The only decrease was in hijackings in the Northern Cape and North West.