The 2017/2018 South Africa Police Service statistics were recently released.
According to these statistics, cases of murder had increased and Cape Town Central recorded the most cases in the country.
They also detailed how each and every police station in the country had performed in the past year as compared to previous years.
The number of cases of sexual offences reported at Fairland Police Station rose from one in 2016/2017 to seven in 2017/2018.
Station Commander Lieutenant Colonel Clive de Freitas said the increase in reported cases suggests that victims are confident enough to open such cases.
“Due to the continuous efforts to educate and empower victims to come forward and report such incidents, victims have reported cases which may have previously gone by without being reported.”
He added that in all the sexual offences incidents reported at Fairland police, the suspects were known to the victim, some of which were family members.
Another area of concern is that of robbery with aggravating circumstances. These cases increased from 76 to 100.
De Freitas believes that the public has become more security conscious and are continually putting more measures in place to protect themselves and belongings.
This has resulted in criminals having to adjust their tactics in order to catch people off guard. He also said, “Street robberies have also increased where criminals are targeting pedestrians and robbing them of cell phones and other personal belongings of value.”
According to De Freitas, plans are in place to combat these crimes.
“The station will deploy extra resources to hotspot areas during peak crime times to supplement daily deployment. More multi-disciplinary operations are being conducted with the support of local security companies, Metro police, Social Development and Home Affairs to name but a few.”
The partnership with the local Community Policing Forum will also play a big part in reducing crime through awareness campaigns, patroller programmes, neighbourhood watch programmes and WhatsApp groups.
Local businesses are also encouraged to participate in all crime prevention initiatives.
In total, the station recorded 1 147 community reported serious crimes, up from 1 126 last year.
When asked which areas they would like to improve on, De Freitas said, “One must remember that communities are growing all the time, unemployment is growing, drug and alcohol abuse is an ongoing problem, so naturally crime tendencies will rise. These are by no means excuses but it is a reality.”
He concluded that his station and officers will continuously work at reducing crime in the area.
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