South Africa’s crime prevention system has undergone a radical transformation since 1994, effectively ending political violence, dealing with urban and right-wing terror and taking important steps to stabilise crime, the ruling African National Congress has reported.
But it has acknowledged on the ANC website that aggravated robbery had persistently increased since 1996 and noted that almost 50% of robberies now related to cell-phone theft.
The ruling party is also candid about rape statistics.
“One of the greatest challenges has been, and remains, the high level of rape and other sexual assault crimes. Rape levels increased by about 10% after 1994, then remained stable until returning to 1994 levels in the last year.”
Quoting a government discussion document — Towards a Ten Year Review — the ruling party argues that research indicates that levels of serious crime are “continuing to stabilise or come down”.
In reply to a question in Parliament, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula notes that murders were down to 22 030 in 2000 from a peak of 26 832 in 1994. Figures for attempted murder had risen from 27 300 to 28 124 between 1994
and 2000.
The National Crime Combating Strategy had “begun to make an impact”, it argues. Except for robbery and malicious damage to property, most of the 20 categories of serious crime have recently either stabilised or are decreasing compared with the figures since 1994, says the ANC.
“High-profile robberies, like vehicle hijacking and bank-related heists, have gone down 33% and 52% respectively since data was first recorded in 1996. Over 200 criminal syndicates have been neutralised out of 300 identified and investigated.”
The ANC notes that an analysis of all the stabilising trends indicates that significant decreases in most cases have been achieved over the past two years: “Some cases of stabilisation can easily turn to decreases if a little more effort is spent.”
Progress has also been made in other areas of the criminal justice system. Programmes of the integrated justice system have resulted in faster finalisation of cases, an improvement in the quality of dockets, and an increase in conviction rates from about 78% in 1999 to 81% in 2002, it says.
A number of measures have been put in place to regulate the ownership of legal firearms and reduce the number of illegal firearms.
“As a result of these efforts, over 80 000 firearms have been destroyed by the justice, crime prevention and security cluster.”
The Department of Correctional Services, meanwhile, has had to deal with severe overcrowding in prisons and the lack of an effective programme of rehabilitation.
“There is a repeat offender rate of as much as 60%, which makes the need for proper rehabilitation all the more urgent.”
“Overcrowding is being relieved by the construction of new prisons, the introduction of alternative sentences, the promotion of correctional supervision and an awaiting-trial prisoner project. Improved security in prisons has reduced the number of escapes from 1 244 in 1996 to 325 in 2002,” the ANC reports. — I-Net Bridge