Acting National Police Commissioner, Khomotso Phahlane has urged South Africans to play their part and assist police in their efforts to fight crime.
“The fight against crime is everyone’s responsibility, not just the police’s,” said Phahlane when he briefed the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee and the Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, on the latest crime statistics.
Briefing members of parliament, Nhleko shared that there had been a decrease in incidents of crime in broad categories – except for contact crime, which is murder, assault and sexual assault, which has gone up by one per cent over the last financial year.
The murder rate, alone, has gone up by 4.9 per cent and the head of Crime Research and Statistics, Norman Sekhukhune said murder remains a problematic crime faced by the police. Sekhukhune also highlighted that their docket analysis of murder shows multiple murders in one incident.
For example, seven victims in one case of domestic violence. He also added that most of the contact crimes reported were linked to alcohol abuse and occur among people who know one another.
Sekhukhune said that 65.9 per cent of reported crimes is contact crimes and property-related crime.
Other crime statistics released include:
Shoplifting went down by 3 per cent
Commercial crime up by 3.1 per cent
Bank robbery down by 64.7 per cent
Cash-in-transit robbery up by 15.1 per cent
Truck hijacking down by 7.4 per cent
Robbery at non-residential areas up by 2.8 per cent
Robbery at residential areas up by 2.7 per cent
Carjacking up by 14.3 per cent.
