CRIME STATISTICS 2009
Media Release
06 October 2009
You are welcomed to this media
conference where we will be discussing
crime related issues affecting our
province.
The information to be discussed today
will among others, assist the
department, SAPS and other stakeholders
to properly plan and to allocate
resources to SAPS accordingly in order
to fight crime effectively.
We wish to announce that, among all the
other crime categories in Mpumalanga,
contact crime has increased by two
percent.
This may look like a small number in
terms of percentages; however, the
number of actual cases reported at
various police stations remains
unacceptably very high.
In the 2007/2008 financial year, SAPS
recorded 45 985 contact crime cases. The
subsequent year, [2008/2009] the number
increased to 46 743. This means that
instead of achieving the national target
of reducing crime by 7 – 10 percent,
crime in the province increased by 758
cases.
The breakdown of crime in the contact
crime category include the decrease by
8% of common robbery, 6% decrease in
common assault, 8% increase in murder,
18% increase of robbery with aggravating
circumstances cases, 13% increase of
sexual offences and 1% increase of
assault with grievous bodily harm cases.
We are concerned regarding robbery at
business premises which has alarmingly
increased by 168%. It shows that much is
still to be done by the department, SAPS
in partnership with the business
community and the society in general.
It should be noted that the reason this
type of crime is so high, is because of
the belief that there is money stored in
their business establishments.
In most rural areas, criminals are of
the perception that some foreign
nationals do not take their money to
banks, hence the increase of robbery in
these business premises.
Car hi-jacking is contributing a lot in
the category of robbery with aggravated
circumstances. For the 2008/2009
financial year, the province registered
a 48% increase. This crime is dominant
in areas including KaNyamazane,
Kabokweni, Witbank, Culcuta and
Siyabuswa.
Delmas remain under spotlight in terms
of truck-hijacking is concerned. This
area is followed by Grootvlei, Leslie,
Bethal and Ogies respectively, hence a
14% increase.
Robbery at residential premises
increased by 38% and this indicate that
our people are always targeted by
criminals.
Our highway patrol teams and crime
prevention units will be deployed at
strategic points across the province in
order to fight car hijackers and to
ensure that people utilize their
vehicles and other property freely.
Many people reach our police stations to
report crime when an incident had
occurred, however, it becomes a
challenge to respond to crime scenes,
particularly in areas where there is
poor signage, poor roads infrastructure
and villages without street names.
We will soon call a meeting with the
House of Traditional Leaders and
councilors to come up with a plan on how
to speed up the process of making sure
that streets are accessible and are
named for easy access in case of
emergency.
Stock theft is one crime that affects
many people, particularly farm owners,
farm dwellers and people living in rural
areas. However, in our province, it
seems as if the Gert Sibande Region is
the most affected.
Areas affected the most include Ermelo,
Amersfoort, Dirkiesdorp, Volkrust and
Piet Retief. In the five mentioned
areas, 1094 stock theft cases were
reported. This translates to a lot of
money of which the owners of the animals
lost to criminals.
Other serious crimes that include shop
lifting and commercial crimes have also
increased by 2%. Property crime has
increased by 8% with burglary to
business premises increased by 25%.
There has been a decrease of 3% in
crimes dependent on police for
detection. These crimes include illegal
possession of fire arms, drug related
crimes and driving under the influence
of liquor.
Illegal possession of firearms has
increased by 12%. This is not good
because almost all other crimes are
committed by culprits in possession of
fire-arms.
Drugs play a major role as a generator
of crime, and police should do more to
detect this type of crime in order to
increase the arrest and conviction rate.
Working together we will do more in
order to ensure that sexual offences are
minimized. For the period under review,
this crime has increased by 13%. It
should be noted that sexual offences now
include rape, indecent assault and
sodomy.
Crimes such as kidnapping and public
violence have increased by 53 and 23%
respectively. This is due to the fact
that protests related to service
delivery gained momentum towards the end
of the 2008/2009 financial year.
As Government, we are concerned that we
are not meeting the target of reducing
crime by 7 – 10%. We still need to pull
our sleeves and work hard with the
police and the community at large.
In addressing some of these challenges
posed by crime in the province, all
stakeholders should work together in
conducting awareness campaigns and crime
operations in order to win the war
against crime.
Last week, the department held a Shebeen
and Tavern Indaba since it has been
established that alcohol abuse
contributed highly and is one of the
generators of crime, particularly social
contact crimes.
We also called young people to a Youth
Crime Prevention Summit of which its
resolutions will assist the department
to draw a crime fighting strategy
involving the youth since many people
who are involved and also victims of
crime fall under the youth category.
The department believes that the new
regulation on the registration of Sim
cards by service providers will assist
the police in dealing with crime because
it will be easy to trace suspects of
crime where cell phones were involved.
The roll out of sector policing is at an
advance stage in the province and
communities need to be involved in order
to access police services quicker.
We would like to thank communities for
reporting crime and their involvement in
fighting crime. The successes recorded
by the police would not have been
realistic if communities did not have
faith in the Mpumalanga police.
Thank you.
Issued by Mpumalanga Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison
Enquiries: Joseph Mabuza on 082
678 1450 or Sibongile Nkosi on 082 556
5574
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