Slowing murder rate no reason to celebrate

South Africans live in an increasingly violent environment, despite signs of a slow-down in the murder rate, experts have noted following the announcement of annual crime statistics on Friday morning.

The murder rate continued its incline, although it was beginning to slow down, noted crime expert at the Institute of Security Studies Dr Johan Burger.

The murder rate was statistically slowing to a point where Burger could foresee the numbers begin to plateau in the next few years, but this did not take away from the fact that violent crimes were not showing signs of slowing, and it was these violent crimes which often led to murder and which contributed to the fear and anxiety faced by South Africans in their daily lives.

“If you look at the gruesome murders that we see reported in the media such as the Vaalharts murders along with other daily reports on serious crimes that we see in the media, then these are the things that are making South Africans feel increasingly unsafe,” said Burger.

Speaking during his announcement of the new stats, Police Minister Bheki Cele noted that overall crime levels were down in the 2019/2020 period compared to the previous year, though murder had increased by 1,4% compared to the previous year going from 21,022 counts to 21,325.

Sexual offences discovered as result of police action increased by over 800 counts from 7,976 in the previous year to 9,614.

Among crimes which had shown a sharp decline were robbery at residential premises, which went down from 22,431 in the previous year to 21,130, showing a 5.8% decline in the 2019/2020 period. Attempted murder showed a 1,4% decline from 18,980 counts in the previous year to 18,635.

Graphic: Costa Mokola

“There is very little in the crime stats that will have a positive impact on our feelings of safety. We have seen some improvements as far as the leadership is concerned. We have seen a number of improvements over the last year of two. We have seen new appointments within the Hawks, all of which have been improvements. And I think to some extent this many have contributed to some of the improvements that we have seen where they are in the current statistics,” said Burger.

“Of course looking at where we are in the current lockdown situation of Covid-19 have made things difficult, because it has changed the whole situation and we will probably only be able to see a year from now to what extent policing has improved. “

A number of lessons from the lockdown period had been learnt in terms of where policing could be improved, noted Burger.

“I think that the one thing that we at the ISS are calling is that the police know where the high crime areas are, they know at which time of day these crimes happen, one would expect that they put much more effort into putting targeted policing in those high-crime areas so this is what we are hoping to see.”

Crime expert Ian Cameron echoed the notion that South Africa’s patterns of violence which often ends in death have not shown any improvements would not make the average South African feel reasonably safe.

“If you look at murders in general, it can be quite a misleading statistic on its own. If you also consider the contact crimes which could have led to murder it’s likely that everyone survived who could have been murdered. It’s s likely that less people might have died in the circumstances that still could have led to people being killed.”

“If we look at attempted murder the increase is almost the same as when you compare it to the murder rate,” said Cameron. “But take it further now and you look at assault GBH (assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm) it has shown a decrease. But if you look at common robbery which has shown a relative increase, and aggravated robbery which has also shown an increase, it shows you that violence in South Africa hasn’t shown a decrease.”

Cele noted the improvements caused by specialised and targeted police operations during the lockdown, a policy direction the ISS encouraged.

Targeted interventions are needed to reduce stubbornly high levels of murder and armed robbery in South Africa, said ISS researcher Gareth Newham in a statement.

Noting that murder and armed robbery rose for the eighth consecutive year, Newham said these two crime categories gave the best sense of the state of public safety in the country.

“While the murder rate more than halved between 1994 and 2012, the latest figures show that since then, murder has increased by 37%, with an additional 5,771 murders in 2019/20 compared to 2012. Aggravated robbery is up 43%, with 43,221 more armed attacks in 2019/20 than eight years ago,” said Newham.

“With the murder rate of 36 per 100,000 people remaining unchanged over the past year, there is some hope that this crime type might be stabilising for the country as a whole. Over the last year however, murder increased by a substantial 10.6% in KwaZulu-Natal and 5% in Mpumalanga.”

Domestic violence remains a huge concern, accounting for 16% of the total annual murders where a motive was identified. Vigilantism accounted for 13%, armed robberies for 11%, and gang-related violence for 1,023 killings.

“Like most crimes, murder and armed robbery are not randomly distributed but have again been focused around known risk areas,” said Newham. “That means police should have the ability to apply crime intelligence and analysis, evidence-based practices and targeted interventions to address these most serious crimes.”

Simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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