Sixty-one percent of all Gauteng policing precincts recorded a decrease in the total amount of violent crimes between July and December 2007, compared with the same period the previous year.
Addressing the media on his six-monthly report, Gauteng minister for community safety Firoz Cachalia said violent contact-crime categories like murder, attempted murder, rape, attempted rape, total aggravated robbery and common robbery decreased within the target range of between 7% and 10%.
However, business robberies and truck hijackings rose, but at a substantially lower rate than the previous year, he said.
Cachalia also said that during the period July to December 2007, 134 514 calls for assistance were attended to; 7 055 roadblocks were carried out; 5 315 cordon and search operations took place; and there were 3, 52 suspect raids, while 623 019 vehicles were searched and 1 247 313 people were searched.
As a result of these activities, 5 873 firearms were seized and 1 974 stolen vehicles recovered.
From July to December 2007, a total of 34 036 arrests were made for all violent contact crimes — this is an overall increase of 10% compared with the same period in 2006, Cachalia said.
Referring to the period January to June 2008, Cachalia said that the ”Take Charge Campaign” would be intensified.
Gauteng would also continue with the training of CPF (Community Policing Forum) executive members and train and deploy a further 2 000 patrollers, bringing the total to 4 000 by March 2009. — Sapa