Last week Friday the South African Police Service released the crime statistics for the 2013/14 financial year.
These stats showed highs and lows in various crimes over the past year.
· Murder went up by of five percent in 2013/14 which according to the police shows that 17 068 people were murdered in the country last year.
· Attempted murder increased by 4,6 percent.
· Assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm was on rise by 1,5 percent.
· Robbery with aggravated circumstances spiked by 12,7 percent.
· Common assault went down by 3,3 percent.
· Sexual offences decreased by 5,6 percent.
· Rape and sexual assault dropped by 6,3 percent.
· Personal safety and business crimes like house robbery, business robbery and carjacking spiked by 10,8 percent.
· Car hijackings went up by 12,3 percent.
· Truck hijackings increased by 12,1 percent.
· Robberies peaked by 13,7 percent.
· Robbery in residential areas increased by 7,4 percent.
· Property related crimes went down by 0,2 percent.
· Bank robberies increased from seven incidents from last year to 21 this year.
· Other serious crime was reduced by 1,4 percent.
· Drug-related crimes escalated by 26,1 percent in the past financial year.
· Drinking and driving lessened by 1,8 percent in the past year.
The police said that everyone needs to be involved if there was any hope of reducing these crimes and fighting corruption in the communities.