Pretoria ranked third most dangerous city in the world

Pretoria has been ranked as the third most dangerous city in the world by an international survey-based website – despite the national crime stats painting a different picture.

Numbeo 2021 crime index conducts a survey based on participants’ feelings and perceptions rather than actual crime statistics.

According to the website Pretoria is followed by Durban, Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg.

Researchers said while this may be the case, the questions for these surveys were similar to scientific and government surveys.

According to Numbeo, the survey had about 2 704 South African participants (in the last 36 months) from 96 675 overall participants from different cities in the world.

“To generate a current index (which is always updated) we use data up to 36 months old. We include only cities for which there are at least a certain number of contributors.

“Our semi-annual index is remade twice per year by pushing the current index into this historical view. Crime index is an estimation of the overall level of crime in a given city or a country.”

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According to provincial police crime statistics, Tshwane region recorded a 7.4% drop in reported community serious crimes from October to December 2020 compared to the previous financial year.

The region also had a decrease in reported contact crimes (which include murder and rape), with Johannesburg leading the province with 18 415 cases.

Out of 1 327 people murdered in the province in three months, Tshwane accounted for 221 murders and 476 in Johannesburg.

While the research may have raised red flags for the Tshwane region, police minister Bheki Cele said he was more worried about crime in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal as murder and rape in the two provinces increased.

“These stats show the police are regressing in their fight against crime in those provinces,” the minister said during the statistics presentation.

Cele urged the service to work harder to fight against crime as there was a national increase of 6.6% in murder cases during October to December 2020.

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He found Mpumalanga worrisome as it recorded the highest increase of 13.7% when compared to the previous financial year.

“A 5% increase has been recorded for sexual offences detected as a result of police action – 12 218 people were raped between October and December last year.

“Inanda, Umlazi in Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Eastern Cape’s Lusikisiki police stations recorded the highest incidents of rape.”

This article was republished from Rekord with permission 

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