Gauteng crime stats: ‘Cops can’t cope with crime wave’

The Gauteng crime wave is threatening to engulf police, according to an expert.

Provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela yesterday presented Gauteng’s crime stats for the first quarter to June this year and revealed the overall crime increased by 4%, which translated to 4 022 more cases than the same period last year.

The province alone contributed 27.9% to the national crime stats figure for the first quarter. According to Mawela, contact crimes, or crimes against a person, increased by 6%.

“Contact crimes is the major contributor to our crime scoreboard and contributed 42 752 offences.

Assault and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) are still the main contributors,” he said.

“These two offences have increased by 11.3% and 7.8% respectively, with a combined 20 088 count increase. A total of 13 214 suspects were arrested for contact crime.”

Mawela said the top three causes for murder – based on an analysis of a sample size of 1 372 counts – were “arguments, misunderstandings, road rage, provocation, robbery, vigilantism and mob justice”.

“The instruments frequently used during murders are firearms, followed by knives, then sharp instruments,” he said.

Sexual offences had decreased by 1%, but the province was hit hard by police killings, Mawela said.

Independent crime and policing expert Johan Burger said Gauteng could clearly not be isolated from the general upward trend in SA’s crime rate.

“Our murder rate nationally increased by just over 50% in the past decade in spite of the Covid-related dip in 2020.

“The same can be said for aggravated robbery that increased by approximately 48% over the same period, with a slight decrease in 2020, as a result of the Covid restrictions,” he said.

“The 3.1% decrease in SA’s national murder rate during the first quarter must be welcomed, although I doubt this is the start of a new downward trend.”

According to Burger, deficiencies within the criminal justice system, as well as the worsening socioeconomic conditions, are to blame.

Unemployment led to poverty that, in turn, caused social conditions conducive to crime.

Groups and individuals involved in crime as a business and driven by greed escalated these conditions, he said.

“To make matters worse, organised criminal networks are exploiting the weaknesses in SA’s criminal justice system.

“For example, the crime intelligence division in the SA Police Service is largely dysfunctional, with only a few pockets of excellence still producing valuable proactive intelligence.

“The situation had deteriorated to a level where SA is now listed among the top 20 out of 193 countries in relation to organised criminality scores,” Burger said.

“In fact, the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, in their 2022 report, regards organised crime as an ‘existential threat’ to South Africa.”

Burger said SA’s population growth was fast outstripping the growth in police numbers.

During the past decade, the population increased by more than 11 million, while the number of police officials decreased by about 15 000: from almost 155 000 sworn officers (excluding civilian staff) in 2011, to just under 140 000 in 2021.

“This happened as a result of budget cuts and the inability to recruit and train new members during Covid.

But even with the current recruitment and training processes and assuming we can get back to about 150 000 police officials, we are still far behind the pace that our population has and still is growing,” Burger said.

“That’s why we are unable to contain the current crime wave, let alone bringing it down to a consistent basis.”