Crime stats: Did the Cele, Sitole rift play a role in murder rate surge?

Despite the South Africa Police Service’s (Saps) attempt to boast about a decrease in crime, the quarterly crime statistics released on Friday painted a grim picture of the shocking and sad state of the force – with an increase in rape cases and women and children murdered at a frightening rate.

Following the release of the crime statistics recorded between 1 October and 31 December last year, Police Minister Bheki Cele and national police commissioner Khehla Sitole need to ask if their estranged working relationship is to blame for the surge.

Cele said the spat was exaggerated and nothing to write home about, while Sitole also dismissed it.

In the period under review, 902 women were killed and so were 373 children between the ages and 0 and 17 years old.

A total of 15,692 cases of assault of women, or gender-based violence (GBV), and 2,048 cases of children assault were opened.

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The overall murder rate went up 8.9% to 6,859,562 cases, with 5,645 attempted murder cases, 46,513 assaults with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm cases and 47,081 common assault cases recorded.

Despite the 9% drop in sexual offences, 14,188 cases were reported, of which 11,315 were rape cases and 2,069 sexual assault cases.

This meant a rape was reported to the police every 12 minutes for the time the report covered.

The police stations that reported the most serious crime incidents included Cape Town Central with 2,289 cases, followed by Honeydew with 2,173 cases and Durban Central Station with 1,946 cases.

KwaZulu-Natal recorded the most murders with 1,682 cases, followed by Gauteng with 1 570 cases and Eastern Cape with 1 304 cases reported.

The Free State’s murder rate dropped by 21.1 % from 308 murders in the same period last year to 243 murders reported.

The station with the highest murder records increased is Inanda, followed by Alexandra and Tembisa.

Policing expert at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Dr Johan Burger said the long and short of the crime stats was violent crimes, murder and attempted murder, were on the rise.

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“When the lockdown restrictions were lifted, the crime returned to an upward curve. It worries me because it may be declining, but it is highly unlikely.

“It makes one wonder if the problem does not lie in reporting the crimes,” he said. Burger said it may be possible crimes were decreasing but there was a greater possibility it was not.

“The stats only showed crimes reported to the police,” he said, adding the less trust the public had in the police, the less likely they were to report crimes.

Political analyst Piet Croucamp said the tiff between Cele and Sitole was symbolic of the fragmentation of the justice system.

“It’s been coming for some time. The problem was at the command and control structures,” he said.

He said the problem was due to poor training, state capture and corruption.

“It is not possible to get the police ready to carry out their constitutional duties if your order and control is as rotten as it was in South Africa,” he said.

“We are seeing from the top, it surfaced there but it was rotten to the core and has been rotten for decades which is now manifesting at the top.”

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Croucamp said officers were not trained to apply the basic functions of policing in the community, citing the July riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

“The police were totally out of their depth. When the police arrive at a scene and do not know what to do, it tells you something about the command and control,” he said.

A criminologist at the University of Limpopo, professor Jaco Barkhuizen said the stats showed whatever the police were doing, it wasn’t working.

“We need a proactive technologically police strategy, we need boots on the ground, skilled investigators, and political fights at the top to stop,” he said.