Honeydew Police Station saw a 20.1% decrease in the number of crime incidents reported from January to March compared to the same period last year.
There were 1 717 cases compared to 2 149 – a drop of 432 cases.
This took Honeydew out of the top 10 list of police stations with the most reported cases in the country, where it traditionally found itself. All this was revealed in Police Minister Bheki Cele’s report for the crime statistics for the fourth quarter of the last financial year.
The number of cases opened at Honeydew Police Station has fluctuated in recent years and in 2021 was even lower (2 036 cases). Yet the trend was that cases reported have generally been decreasing since 2019 and 2020 when there were 2453 and 2465 incidents reported, respectively.
Honeydew was 11th on the list of stations with the most reported crime behind Roodepoort (9th) and Midrand (10th). There were no other police stations from Joburg’s northern suburbs on the list of 30 stations with the most crime.
Honeydew was also the station with the sixth most theft of motor vehicle and motorcycle incidents in the country (117 incidents and a 40% increase from last year). It was also 7th in ‘other serious crimes’ though its 684 incidents in this category were down 9.6% from last year. It was the station with the sixth most incidents of ‘all theft not mentioned elsewhere’, which also decreased slightly at the station by 3.2%.
Honeydew also had the 10th most property-related crime, 11th most commercial crime, 18th most robberies at residential premises, 19th most burglary at residential premises, and 21st most theft out of or from a motor vehicle.
Douglasdale Police Station had the 7th most commercial crime incidents (247 cases compared to 219 last year, an increase of 12.8%), the 15th most ‘other serious crime’ incidents (594 cases), and the 28th most shoplifting incidents (71 cases).
Randburg Police Station was featured once in the report, with the 23rd most common robbery incidents (62 cases reported compared to 54 the previous year, an increase of 14.8%).
Nationally, the fourth quarter saw as many types of crime decrease as those that increased compared to the year before. However, the total contact crimes (crimes against a person) increased by 4%. Interestingly, there were fewer sexual offences reported though attempted sexual offences increased by a whole 21.2%. Property crimes increased by just 1%.
Gauteng had the most incidents of mob justice (164 incidents) while KwaZulu-Natal had 122 and the Eastern Cape had 113.
Crimes that decreased:
- Sexual offences decreased by 4.3%
- Rape went down 2.8%
- Sexual assault decreased by 14.9%
- Contact sexual offences dropped by a whole 30.5%
- Carjacking decreased by 5.2
- Robbery at non-residential premises decreased by 5.3%.
- Bank robberies decreased by 100% (there were five cases reported over the three months last year and none this year)
- Truck hijackings decreased by 6.5%
- Arson decreased by 12.4%
- Malicious damage to property decreased by 1.6%
- Burglary at residential premises dropped by 0.8%
- Theft of motor vehicles and motorcycles dropped by 7.2%
- Stock theft dropped by 5.5%
- Sexual offences detected as a result of police action decreased by 18.7%
- Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs decreased by 40.7%.
Crimes that increased:
- Murder was up by 3.4% (6 083 up to 6 289 murders)
- Attempted murder was up by 8.3% (5 717 up to 6 192 incidents)
- Assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm was up by only 0.2
- Common assault was up 7.6%
- Common robbery increased by 8.9%
- Robbery with aggravating circumstances increased by 5.1%
- Attempted sexual offences increased by 21.2%
- Robbery at residential premises increased by 5.9%
- Cash-in-transit robberies increased by 20.8%
- Burglaries at non-residential premises increased by 12.2%
- Theft out of or from a motor vehicle increased by 2.4%
- All theft not mentioned elsewhere increased by 4.2%
- Commercial crime increased by 10.1%
- Shoplifting increased by 20.3%
- Community-reported serious crimes increased by 3.7%
- Sexual offences detected as a result of police action increased by 18.7%
- Illegal possession of firearms and ammunition increased by 13.6%
- Drug-related crime increased by 5.9%
- Kidnapping increased by 10.1%.
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