The South African Police Service has today unveiled the results of its 2016/17 crime statistics report in Cape Town, and the numbers are anything but comforting.
In a precursor to the stats release, Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula issued a brief statement on Twitter.
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“The SAPS national crime statistics measure twenty-one serious crimes. Seventeen of these crimes are reported by the community and the other four are detected as a result of police-initiated operations,” he tweeted.
He added that because of this, the 17 are “supposed to decrease” while the other four — “illegal possession of firearms and ammunition; driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs; possession of and dealing in drugs; and sexual offenses detected by the police” — should increase in accordance with police action and detection.
However, the statistics in various crime categories show increases and decreases.
#sapsHQ Contact Crimes #CrimeStats percentage change 2014/2015; 2015/2016 & 2016/2017. ME pic.twitter.com/RwZkfDXLPQ
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
Contact crimes — which includes murder, attempted murder, sexual offenses, common and grievous bodily harm (GBH) assault, and common and aggravated robbery — have seen a decrease of 2.4% over 2015/16, and a drop of over 80 000 cases since 2007/08.
Sexual offenses (-4.3%), GBH assault (-6.7%) and common assault (-5.2%) saw the biggest declines over the previous year. Aggravated robbery saw the largest spike, with a 6.4% increase over 2015/16.
#sapsHQ Contact Crime #CrimeStats: Murder: Provincial Overview-Actual. ME pic.twitter.com/Ig0u5lcSOw
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
Murder, although slowing year-on-year, saw a 1.8% increase in 2016/17.
In terms of provincial numbers, Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal saw the most reported cases. Mpumalanga and North West saw a 2% and 0.7% spike in reported cases respectively.
The Western Cape remained the sexual assault capital of South Africa, with over 1600 reported cases in 2016/17. It also saw the biggest increase year-on-year of 6%.
#sapsHQ Contact Crime #CrimeStats: Sexual Offence: Sexual Assault: Provincial Overview-actual. ME pic.twitter.com/p31UrSdqPF
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
Rape cases have increased in North West and Gauteng. The former saw an additional 182 cases in 2016/17 over the previous year. Nationally, the number of reported rape cases decreased by 4%, but case numbers came close to exceeding the 40 000 mark.
That’s around 110 reported cases per day.
#sapsHQ Contact Crime #CrimeStats: Sexual Offence: Rape: Provincial overview-Actual. ME pic.twitter.com/MfH4xyWws7
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
Gauteng however remained the carjacking capital of South Africa by quite some margin. It recorded over 8500 incidents in 2016/17 — a spike of 1200 over the previous year. Although only KwaZulu-Natal saw a larger spike — 21.5% — Gauteng saw close to three times the number of carjackings than any other province.
#sapsHQ Contact Crime #CrimeStats: #TrioCrimes #CarJacking: Provincial Overview. ME pic.twitter.com/TxrEi9e1Aw
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
And speaking of carjackings, cash in transit heists have seen a notable spike in five provinces.
The Free States saw 12 reported cases, a 140% spike over the previous year. The Western Cape remained the cash in transit heist capital of the country, with 35 reported cases — 11 more than 2015/16.
Overall the number of cases reported nationally have dropped from 394 in 2007/08 to 152 in 2016/17.
#sapsHQ Contact Crime #CrimeStats: Cash in Transit robbery #CIT. Provincial Overview. ME pic.twitter.com/Wo7W4fCyWr
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
Contact-related crimes include two specific offenses — arson and malicious damage to property.
This category has seen a drop nationally of 3.3% year-over-year, with arson experiencing a 11.9% decrease.
Arson is notably up in the Western Cape, with 24 more cases recorded in 2016/17 over the previous year. In Gauteng, the opposite was true. It saw a drop by over 260 reported cases.
#sapsHQ Contact related Crime #CrimeStats: Arson: Provincial Overview. ME pic.twitter.com/RLr0N2LvP2
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
Property-related crimes saw increases across all sectors in the Eastern Cape.
#sapsHQ Property related crimes #CrimeStas: Hihglightson Property-related crimes. Provincial breakdown (total & percentage change). ME pic.twitter.com/5SIt6MpMSu
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
While burglary of residential premises have decreased for Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. These three provinces, nonetheless, recorded over 140 000 cases between them.
#sapsHQ Property related crimes #CrimeStats: Burglary at residential premises: Provincial Overview. ME pic.twitter.com/kKQxOE2wmC
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
North West, Eastern Cape and Gauteng experienced the biggest increase in property-related damage. Although nationally, property related crimes did decrease by 0.5%.
#sapsHQ Property related crimes #CrimeStats: highlights on the property related crimes: Provincial Overview. ME pic.twitter.com/m8lD6xuHPN
— SA Police Service (@SAPoliceService) October 24, 2017
Finally, crimes detected as a result of police action or detection saw an increase by 9.6% to more than 390 000 cases.
Crimes detected as police action #YindabaYakhoNawe pic.twitter.com/ExZyOxmfNC
— RSA Police Minister (@MbalulaFikile) October 24, 2017
More pic.twitter.com/6lNZVGqfvu
— RSA Police Minister (@MbalulaFikile) October 24, 2017
The full report is available on SAPS website.
