Cape Town - Crime rates are still falling, especially in the most feared categories, but the rate of the decrease has slowed.
Murder fell again, by 3.1%, “a further decrease in a long line of decreases”, which had resulted in a 27.6% drop over the 8-year period between 2004/5, when there were more than 18 000 murder cases, and 2011/12, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa announced during the release of the annual crime statistics in Parliament on Thursday.
Contact crimes, involving physical contact that is usually violent and coercive, declined by 3.5% in 2011/12, still representing almost a third of all serious recorded crimes. But this was a slower decrease than the previous figure of 6.9%.
Two categories of the dreaded “trio crimes”, carjacking (11.9%) and house robberies (1.9%), also fell.
However, business robberies went up 7.5%, after levelling out last year.
Overall, the figures represented a “mixed bag, with marginal downward trends in some of the crime categories”, said Mthethwa.
An area that remained “stubbornly high” was sexual offences.
Overall, this category decreased by 3.7%, with rape falling 1.9%, still an unacceptable level.
The decision in 2009 to re-establish the Family, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Units was beginning to have an effect, but more resources and better training of police was needed, said Mthethwa.
Among the most highly organised crimes, carjacking, chash-in-transit and bank robberies, each fell: carjackings by 11.9%, cash van heists by 37.5% and bank robberies by 10.3%.
This had been the result of co-ordinated planning and partnerships with the business and banking sectors.
Aggravated robberies fell by 1.4%, a worrying slowdown from the 12% drop of the previous period.
“We have to say upfront we are unhappy with this reversal and shall be paying attention to this category,” the minister said.
Common robberies also fell, by 4.6 %, part of another 8-year downward trend of 40.9 %.
Political Bureau