Pretoria | Saturday
CRIME is under control in South Africa, Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete said in Pretoria on Friday.
He said the country’s murder rate had dropped significantly, although the rate of theft and robbery had gone up when the first nine months of this year were compared to the same period last year.
”It is encouraging to note that murder, although still a serious area of concern, has decreased by 4,9% when 2001 is compared with 2000. Over the period 1994 to 2001 murder has in actual fact decreased by more than 25%,” the minister said.
Addressing reporters with Justice Minister Penuell Maduna and national police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, Tshwete said the incidence of rape and attempted rape in South Africa between 1994 and September this year had also stabilised.
He said this could be attributed to special awareness campaigns and the establishment of specialised units and individuals at station level to deal with rape cases.
”However, when the categories of adult and child rape are separated, an increase in child rapes becomes evident during the past two years. South Africa has also been confronted with shocking incidents of the rape of young children over the past few months,” he said.
Commercial crimes had decreased by 12,2% from 2000 to 2001, while the hijacking of trucks and vehicles and robbery of cash-in-transit vehicles and bank robberies had collectively decreased by 7,8%.
Robbery with aggravating circumstances and other robbery categories have shown increases of 7,6% and 4,5% respectively from last year to this year.
Tshwete said South Africa had on various occasions been labelled as the crime capital of the world.
”It needs to be emphasised from the outset that an international comparison of crime figures and ratios is an extremely difficult and risky venture.
”The definitions and reporting systems, as well as the relationship between police and community, often make cross-country statistics impossible to compare. And only half of the countries of the world report their crime statistics to Interpol.”
According to a report of the British Home Office, Washington DC had a murder rate of nearly 70 per 100 000 of the population in 1997, while the corresponding rate for Pretoria was indicated as 41,12 per 100 000 of the population, he told reporters.
Some cities in the Sao Paolo region in Brazil suffered very high murder rates during 1999, for example Diadema at nearly 150 per 100 000 of the population which is higher than Johannesburg (136,3 per 100 000 during the same year).
Property-related crimes such as theft, theft of motor vehicles and breaking and entering per 100 000 of the population are on much higher levels in countries such as Australia and Canada than in South Africa –using Interpol statistics for 1999.
”A case in point is the perception that business capital’s such as Johannesburg and Pretoria are capital cities of crime whereas the truth is that violent crime is more prevalent on the outskirts of the cities in townships such as Alexandra, Klipgat, Soshanguve, Mamelodi, and others.
”It is of course also an international phenomenon that these types of crime predominantly occur in deprived areas,” Tshwete argued.
On drugs, Tshwete said the Crime Information Analysis Centre had found that about 50% of people arrested for murder and attempted murder tested positive for the use of drugs, mostly cannabis and Mandrax.
Another joint study by the Medical Research Council, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the University of South Africa, established that nearly 60% of murder cases last year were alcohol-related.
He said the police national crime combating strategy (NCCS) had begun to show clear signs of success.
”With the announcement of the strategy in April 2000 we had indicated that we were aiming to stabilise crime over a period of three years, namely 2001 — 2003. Today I can announce that this objective has already been achieved in less than 50% of the time that we have planned for,” the minister said.
Seventeen of the 20 priority serious crimes targeted under the NCCS, better known as ”Operation Crackdown,” had either decreased or stabilised during the 18 months to September, he said.
Both the Democratic Alliance and the New National Party said they were pleased that there were signs that South Africa’s crime was decreasing, but called for more to be done.
DA safety and security representative Paul Swart said South Africa still needed more police.
”We, however, still lack the most important ingredient in the recipe for a successful campaign, and that is police officers on the beat without which all the best-laid plans and strategies will come to no avail.”
NNP leader in the National Council of Provinces, Piet Mathee, said that although murder had decreased it was ”still at a totally unacceptable high level”.
He said the country now had to build on the ”limited successes” achieved thus far, so that serious crime in South Africa could be reduced drastically over the next few years. – Sapa