18 Oct 2006: ISS Today: South Africa: The 2005/06 Official Crime Statistics in Context

18 October 2006: South Africa: The 2005/06 Official Crime Statistics in Context

 

The release of the official crime statistics by the South African Police Service (SAPS) for the last financial year (April 2005–March 2006) on 27 September this year was bound to be controversial. The past six months have seen public fears growing about the development of a new crime wave. Widespread media coverage particularly of violent robberies (some of which resulted in rape and murder) in Western Cape and Gauteng, together with the infamous Jeppestown (Johannesburg) shootout between police and about 24 gangsters in June in which 12 people died (including four police officers killed execution-style), have fuelled concerns about an upsurge in crime.

 

These concerns have been confirmed by the Minister of Safety and Security who stated soon after the Jeppestown incident (Sunday Times 2/7/06), and again at the press conference at which the statistics were released, that some crimes have indeed increased in the past six months. Together with the uncharacteristically candid revelations from leading members of the short-term insurance industry about a 30-40% surge in claims for car hijackings between March and June 2006 compared to the same period last year, there is now little doubt that in some parts of the country, crimes like robbery have increased markedly this year.

 

Bearing in mind that the latest release of official data only covered the 12-month period up to March 2006, what did the statistics show? The trends relating to crimes that are generally highly organised – car hijacking, car theft and cash-in-transit robberies – are of concern:

  • The number of car hijackings had been coming down since 2001/02, reaching the lowest point in eight years at 12,434 hijackings in 2004/05. In the last financial year however this trend was reversed, with a 3% increase in recorded hijackings.
  • Car theft – the most reliable property crime in the official database – showed a similar change over the medium-term. Having decreased steadily between 1998/99 and 2004/05, car theft increased by 3% in the last financial year, reaching a rate of 183 per 100,000 people (85,964 incidents).
  • The trend for cash-in-transit (CIT) robberies has been the source of most concern, with the statistics showing a substantial increase of 74% between 2004/05 and 2005/06 (from 220 to 383 incidents). That this may be partially attributable to a change in the way the police define CIT robberies. Consider that the South African Banking Risk Information Centre’s (SABRIC) figures for CIT heists the same period show an increase of 28% (admittedly still a significant percentage for one year). The CIT robbery trend has been erratic since police started recording these crimes separately in 1996/97, and it’s not the first time that such high levels have been recorded. More than 300 incidents were recorded in 1996/97 (359) and again in 2002/03 (374).

 

Other than these three crimes, the good news is that many of the positive trends noted over the past few years are continuing:

  • Overall, recorded crime for the total of 21 serious crimes was down by 9% from the previous year. After 2002/03 (when total crime levels peaked in the country), a steady decrease was recorded, amounting to an 18% drop by 2005/06.
  • Burglary (of homes and businesses) decreased by 6% (to 559 per 100,000) and 3% (to 116 per 100,000) respectively from the previous year, also representing a continuation of a downward trend.
  • Aggravated robbery dropped by 6% (to 255 per 100,000) and common robbery by 18% (to 159 per 100,000). As in the case of total crime, both types of robbery had peaked in 2002/03, and have declined steadily since then.
  • The murder rate decreased by 2% between 2004/05 and 2005/06. This is good news considering that murder is the most accurate crime on record, and the only reliable statistical indicator of violence in a society. However, the murder trend is one to watch in future. The rate has decreased steadily since 1995/96 by an average of 5% per year. The 2% drop in the most recent financial year suggests a slow-down in the rate of decrease. Although a similar percentage decrease was recorded once before (in 2002/03) it is possible that the murder rate may be starting to level off at a very high rate of 40 per 100,000 people.

 

Considering that the good news outweighed the bad, why the heightened interest in the 2005/06 statistics? The surge in especially violent robberies over the past six months noted above (which are not included in the latest statistics) provide one answer. But current negative sentiments about crime and safety are about more than the media coverage of horrible incidents and admissions from reliable sources about what the statistics show.

 

The response of police leadership has left the public with the sense that government – and the police in particular – don’t care enough about the problem or its consequences. The Minister of Safety and Security’s remarks in parliament in June that those who just “whinge” about crime (as opposed to doing something about it) should leave the country, were met with outrage from a cross-section of South Africans – wealthy and poor, black and white.

 

In the wake of the Jeppestown incident and the other violent robberies that followed, the police leadership’s communication with the public was sporadic at best. Occasional statements and media appearances were made by the Minister, but given the ‘whinging saga’, he was probably not best placed to calm fears and boost public confidence. Throughout the recent ‘crime wave’, little has been heard from the national commissioner of police. As leader of the SAPS – and with the ability to control strategy, operations and resources – Jackie Selebi holds the position which, rightly or wrongly, symbolises government’s response to crime.

 

What would help is a sincere and informed acknowledgement of the current problem, followed by a clear outline of specific responses to specific crime problems and how these will be dealt with in various parts of the country. Instead we have (from the Minister) a brief two-page statement about a ‘strategy’ that covers generalised responses which sound more like the day-to-day activities of the police (and others) than a considered initiative to deal with a crime wave. Silence from the national commissioner on these issues is bound to raise doubts about the police’s intentions and abilities, if for no other reason than the absence of clear information to the contrary.

 

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that when the official statistics were released by the Minister and the commissioner, they were received with a mixture of scepticism and alarm. The scepticism can be attributed to the fact that the SAPS policy on the release of data meant that the figures didn’t cover the events over the last six months that South Africans were most concerned about. Even though the release policy has been in place for some years now, the timing of events encouraged general public doubts about the accuracy of police crime figures. The sense of alarm came in response to the police leadership’s insistence that the news was overwhelmingly good.

 

While there may well be merit in both the SAPS release policy and the claim that the trends hold good news, the handling of public communications by the police about crime information and policing strategy is clearly out of sync with public sentiment on the issues.

 

This is the context within which the latest crime trends must be considered. And this is why – when the overall objective analysis is that much of the news is indeed good – anyone who has been in the country over the past six months will remain doubtful.

 

Antoinette Louw, Crime and Justice Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria) Office