Gauteng Crime Stats: Everything you need to know

Gauteng Provincial Commissioner Elias Mawela says the spike in anti-foreigner sentiments remain a high security threat to the domestic stability in the province.

Mawela presented the province’s 1st Quarter Crime Statistics for the 2022/23 financial year to the Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Community Safety on Thursday.

Mawela said anti-foreigner sentiments are a serious concern in the province.

“This threat requires a focused and aggressive social cohesion programmes to mitigate. Lastly the social ills such as substance abuse, moral degeneration and socio-economic factors continue to be the underlying causative factors to the contact crimes.”

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He says the season of discontent is still prevailing and continues to hamper the South African Police Service (SAPS) focused resource deployments where they are mostly needed.

“That is prevention and combating serious and violent crimes, burglaries and increase police visibility at the identified hotspot areas.”

Mawela says these structural problems require a structured approach by all stakeholders to discourage people from committing crime.

“Since we all agree that fighting crime is not a sole responsibility of the police, we hereby call upon the whole of government, civil society and businesses to fulfil their obligation in terms of the National Crime Prevention Strategy and any other existing crime fighting strategies.”

“The unfavourable environmental design of some areas, mostly townships and informal settlements continue to make it difficult for the police to access those areas and does affect the police response time to the complaints or emergency situations,” Mawela added.

Mawela provided a high-level synopsis of each crime category.

Contact crime

“We were able to reduce the overall crime category of contact crime which has been in a constant upward trajectory for at least the past two years.”

The overall contact crime category was reduced by 754 less cases, which is 1.8% reduction. Out of the seven sub-categories of contact crimes, four were reduced, which are:

Assault GBH 

“Assault GBH has for the past two years been the reason that we have been calling for the citizens of Gauteng to use amicable solutions to resolve conflicts as opposed to violent methods.

“We have, however, managed to significantly reduce this crime sub-category with 10.4% which has resulted in the recording of 908 cases lower.”

The concern with this category is that, it is the main feeder to the incidents of attempted murder and murder. The 7 835 incidents recorded remain extremely high and concerning.

Common assault

This crime sub-category has also recorded 575 less cases which translates to 5.2% reduction. However, it remains the second biggest contributor to the highest volume of contact crimes in the Province. A total of 10 461 incidents were recorded for the quarter.

Common robbery

This crime sub-category recorded a reduction of 8.1% which resulted in 309 less cases reported from the 3 814 incidents of the comparative period of 2021/2022.

Sexual offences

Sexual offences remain a concern for us as the police, irrespective of the current reduction or whether or not the numbers increase or reduce.

“We reiterate our resolve to fight this category with everything that we have. For the quarter, April to June, we have observed an 8.2% reduction which translates to 217 counts less in comparison with the same period in 2021/2022,” said Mawela.

Murder

During the period under review 293 more murder incidents were reported in Gauteng, which reflect an increase of 24.5%.

Out of 1 490 of people who were killed, 155 of them were women and 50 were children. Furthermore, a total of 34 cases of murder registered during the same period were related to domestic violence where female victims were 18 and male victims were 16.

“A further analysis on the murders that we have recorded in the province has revealed what we already knew, that firearms are frequently used as instruments of choice to commit murder whereby out of 1 490 cases of murder reported, 697 a firearm was used.”

With Gauteng as the second highest province where firearms are most used instruments, police have intensified our resolve to reduce the proliferation of illegal firearms. 

For the period under review, police have managed to remove 1 752 unlicensed firearms and 2 348 ammunition from the wrong hands through intelligence led operations, stop and searches, suspects’ raiding, following up of community tip-offs as well as conducting road blocks at strategic roads.

A total of 581 people were also arrested for murder while 420 were apprehended for attempted murder during this period.

The province continues to experience multiple murders in one incident; resulting in a high number of murders of which for the period under review is 75 case dockets with 175 victims.

“As a province, we have lost two police officers in the line of duty while two were killed off-duty.”

Robbery with aggravating circumstances

The category of robbery with aggravating circumstances which include trio crimes remain prevalent in the province and we have observed an increase of 5.6% which is 701 more cases reported as compared to the last financial year.

Police were able to marginally reduce two sub-categories of robbery with aggravating circumstances which are robbery at residential premises with 0.5% and robbery at non-residential premises with 5.6%.

Kidnapping

SAPS has observed that kidnappings in the province continue to rise significantly, this quarter there were 1 100 more incidents of kidnappings as compared to the same period last financial year.

Hijackings remain the top causative factor as reflected by an analysis from a sample of 1 902 cases of kidnappings where 1 113 of those resulted from hijackings. Hijackings are followed by robbery related with 242, taxi related with 110, retaliation/revenge with 83 and rape related with 81.

The province has managed to recover 3 348 stolen or robbed vehicles during the period under review while 729 people have been arrested for hijacking or possession of suspected stolen motor vehicle.

Property related crime

Property Related crimes decreased by 0.7% translating to 169 less counts registered during this period. However, burglary at residential and business premises and theft of motor vehicles and motor cycle is on the steady rise which is concerning.

The deeper analysis is underway to understand the sudden rise of this sub-categories of property related crime.

Other serious crime

The last crime category of the 17 community reported crime, which is other serious crime category, indicated an increase of 4.6% which translates to 1 304 cases more registered in this period as compared to 2021/2022.

All theft not mentioned elsewhere in other crime categories account to 6.2% which is total 17 870 cases which contribute negatively to the overall crime volumes of the province.

All of the above categories form part of the 17 Community Reported Offences of which for the quarter under review, has increased by 0.3% which translates to 271 cases more reported.

Crime detected as a result of police action

“The statistics for the quarter under review shows that we were hard at work, with boots on the ground to ensure that this category as always expected, saw an increase in cases registered,” further stated Mawela.

Crimes under this category include illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, drug-related crimes, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and sexual offences detected as a result of police action.

“Honourable members, we have managed to increase our detection of these crimes with 20.7%, which is 2 458 more cases registered.”

Mawela said the Gauteng government will intensify anti-crime campaigns and mobilise the stakeholders and communities to join the police in the fight against crime by minimising the opportunity for crime to be committed.

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