Police Minister General Bheki Cele explained on Friday that double-digit crime increases don’t necessarily reflect a true picture of the country’s crime situation as the figures are being compared to an abnormal period (during the country’s national lockdown).

However, he admitted that more work must be done to ensure the safety of all.

Cele was briefing the media on the quarterly crime statistics, reflecting on crimes that occurred from April 1 to the end of June 2021 – during Level 1, 2 and 3 of the country’s Adjusted Lockdown.

All assault categories reported double-digit increases compared with the distorted reporting period of 2020/21.

Cele said 76 936 cases of common assault and assault to do grievous bodily harm were opened with the police in the three months of reporting. Over 15 000 of the cases were domestic violence related.

Cele said the lockdown levels introduced an irregular variation to the crime trends.

He highlighted that contact crimes such as murder, attempted murder, sexual offences and all categories of assault registered a 60.6% increase, compared with the corresponding period of the previous financial year.  

In the three months of reporting, a 66.2% increase in murder was recorded, compared with the 6.7% in the 2019/20 financial year.

A total of 5 760 people were killed in the country between April and June, which means 2 294 more people were killed when compared with the corresponding period in the previous financial year.

Compared to a period without lockdown, Cele said there was an increase of 362 deaths.

Meanwhile, from a sample of 4 467 cases, it was determined that a total of 2 531 people were murdered in public places, 1 385 murders occurred at the home of the victim or of the perpetrator and 206 of the murders occurred at liquor outlets.

OTHER CASES INVOLVED

Between April and June 2021, 10 006 people were raped in the country, an increase of 4 201 cases, amounting to an increase of 72.4%, compared to the skewed previous reporting period.

Cele noted that this number drops drastically to 2.8% if the comparison was made with the normal period prior to lockdown.

For attacks on farms and small-holdings 181 cases were reported, with 119 of the incidents being robbery related, resulting in 15 murders.

He said while all property-related crimes increased by 6.0%, police officers continued to clamp down on stock theft, which recorded a decrease of 8.0%.

If a comparison was made to the normal period of 2019/20 this would have resulted in a 13.5% decrease, he added.

“It is on this score that we brought into focus the comparison of the current period, to smooth out the irregular variation, introduced by the different levels of lockdown restrictions. The lockdown crime trends and figures should not be thrown into the political battlefield for poor political point scoring but instead this should begin to properly define the impact of the pandemic in many areas of police's existence going forward, including the subject of crime and its remnants,” he explained.