Car hijackings

More than 1 400 cars are hijacked in the country every month, according to crime statistics police recently released.

Car hijackings, house robberies, and robberies in non-residential areas, the so-called “trio-crimes”, increased between the 2015/16 financial year and the first nine months (April to December) of the 2016/17 financial year.

Between April and December last year, 12 743 cars were hijacked, compared to 11 086 in the 2015/16 financial year, a 14.9% increase, Norman Sekhukhune, SA Police Service head of crime research and statistics, told reporters in Cape Town.

This amounted to about 1 415 cars hijacked a month in the nine months.

Over 40 000 cars and motorcycles were stolen over the same period, 20 913 of them in Gauteng.

Residential robbery

Robbery at residential premises increased from 16 003 reported cases to 16 844. Robberies at non-residential premises went up from 14 955 to 15 925 between the two periods.

Gauteng was the biggest contributor to property-related crimes. A total of 116 543 incidents were reported over the nine months, a 4% increase from the previous year.

There were 12 779 burglaries at non-residential premises in Gauteng, and 47 819 house robberies.

MPs raised concerns about the increases in trio crimes. Police Minister Nathi Nhleko agreed that it was an area of concern that needed to be tackled.

Murder

While there was a marginal decrease of murders in the country, some provinces still experienced an increase, according to crime statistics.

According to the statistics, 14 333 cases of murder were reported in the time period, a decrease of 10 in comparison to the previous trimester.

In the first quarter, there was a 0.6% increase in murder compared to the previous year, and a 1.9% increase in the second quarter.

It went down by 2.3% in the third quarter, resulting in a 0.1% overall decrease for the nine months.

While murder had decreased in the Northern Cape, Limpopo, the Free State, Eastern Cape And North West, it remained a problem in the Western Cape where there was a 0.7% increase.

KwaZulu-Natal also had a 1.7% increase, while murders went up by 3.7% in Gauteng and 6.8% in Mpumalanga.

The other contributing factor in the first six months of the financial year was that 109 murders recorded were taxi-violence related murders.

Out of these, he said, 47 incidents were committed in Gauteng.

The motive was mostly around road disputes with taxi associations and revenge attacks in that hitmen were hired to eliminate rivals, Sekhukhune said.

Domestic violence also played a role in increasing violence reported in the first semester of the financial year, he said, with 344 murders reported in the period found to be related to such incidents. This contributed to 3.8% of the murders.

Gang violence was also found to be prominent, especially in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape in the first six months of the financial year.

“Thirty-one people killed in 31 days [were] associated with gang violence,” Sekhukhune said, referring to the death count in the Delft area in the Western Cape in August 2016.

Sexual offences

Sexual offences decreased by more than 2 500 cases in the period under review.

Between April 2016 and the end of December, 30 069 cases of rape were reported, down from 32 161 in the previous year. This amounted to just under 110 rape cases a day.

There were 4 815 cases of sexual assault in the year under the spotlight, a decrease of only two cases from the previous year.

Rape decreased in all the provinces in the time under review, with the Northern Cape reporting the highest decrease of more than 14%.

While rape decreased by 0.7% in Gauteng, the province remained the highest contributor to this contact crime with more than 5 900 rapes reported in the nine months.

News24 news24.co.za

Infographic created by Moeketsi Mogotsi