AT Parliament on Friday, March 3, the Portfolio Committee on Police said it was pleased with the improvements witnessed in a number of crime categories as revealed in the recent crime stats that were tabled by the South African Police Service (SAPS).
“It is pleasing to see that the implementation of the back-to-basics strategy on policing has led to the reduction of crimes such as murder, attempted murder, sexual offences, and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm,” said committee chairperson Francois Beukman.
The crime statistics, which cover the nine-month period of April 1 to December 31, 2016, showed a 0.1 per cent decrease in the murder rate, with attempted murder going down by 0.8 per cent. Assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm also decreased by 5.6 per cent, while common assault decreased by 3.7 per cent.
The committee, however, expressed concern with the minimal impact in bringing down contact crimes. This as the robbery with aggravating circumstances has increased by 6.1 per cent. The committee was also concerned that trio crimes (carjacking, house robbery and business robbery) went up by 14.9 per cent across South Africa.
“The fight against contact crimes and the trio crimes needs to be intensified so that we can see a better picture next time,” said Beukman.
The committee further commended the work of the police in particular and said their work helps in the achievement of an increase in the number of crimes detected.
The committee believes effective crime intelligence could help in reducing the concerning levels of some crime categories and wants the management of SAPS to optimise their intelligence services.
Another element the committee believes could be helpful in the fight against crime is management intervention that will put mechanisms in place to support struggling police stations.
Effective deployment of specialised units will also go a long way in addressing these challenges. In this regard, the committee will call the SAPS to explain its strategy regarding the specialised units.
With regard to the number of illegal firearms used in committing crime, the committee said it will be important for the police minister to return to Parliament and brief the committee on how exactly he intends implementing the amnesty.
On the issue of data integrity, the committee implored the SAPS to continue working with Statistics South Africa.
The mention of specialised units is vexing, considering the specialised unit to tackle farm attacks and murders, for instance, has been disbanded, in spite of the fact that a farmer is nearly three times more likely to be murdered than a policeman and four times more likely than a regular citizen.
*Africa Check (source).
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