Parliament - South Africa was no longer a mere transit point for drug circulation but had graduated to a new level in terms of making and using narcotics, national police commissioner Riah Phiyega has said.
Phiyega, alongside Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko, was briefing Parliament’s portfolio committee on police on Tuesday on the SAPS crime statistics for 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015.
“South Africa has graduated to a manufacturer, consumer, and transit state,” she said.
In 2014 alone, 237 South Africans were arrested internationally as drug mules.
Phiyega also noted that Interpol had reported “about 300 drug couriers en route to South Africa” in the period 2014/15.
She said prevention of drug culture through school awareness campaigns could help reduce crime in the future.
Phiyega said that 41.4 percent of all crimes recorded were contact crimes.
She said a major new factor in preserving public and police relations was a dedicated tracker through Stats SA that took surveys of satisfaction with government departments, including the SAPS. This would allow the service to address major public relation issues.
She said the statistics this year had been updated to show “unfounded cases” in previous years. This referred to cases opened that ultimately were withdrawn by complainant or the court. However, she said that they are still reflected in these statistics.
“Our journey continues... Crime stats are so crucial, we need to graduate them from being a national statistics to being an official statistics,” said Phiyega, saying they need to include other statistics, such as GDP and other socio-economic factors.
Phiyega also said taxi violence was a clear “driver” of crime, along with drug circulation, both of which need assistance from communties for the SAPS to combat.
The commissioner believed that illegal firearms were another driver of crimes, with about 10 million firearms circulating across the country in total.
“There are currently 5.3 million official firearms obtained in terms of the Firearms and Ammunition Act. There are also 4.4 million firearms in terms of the Firearms Control Act. We talking a cool 10 million close of firearms circulating in the country,” she said.
According to official records, these firearms are owned by 2.4 million people.
In the last three financial years, police issued 296,315 individual and business firearm licences.
Over the same period, 108,257 firearms were destroyed by police.
She then said the number of foreign nationals in the country involved in crime was also a focus for the SAPS with plans to improve registration of illegal immigrants to potentially link them to outstanding crimes.
She said attacks and murders of police members was a serious concern as well, with many of the fatalities occurring in the Western Cape.
The growth of violent service delivery protests is a major factor in the rise of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm statistics, among others, Phiyega said.
She said the victims of crime survey by Stats SA showed that housebreaking was the crime most feared by society, followed by street robbery, murder and business robbery.
Phiyega said the overall satisfaction levels of the public with police had seen a slight decrease, but that the general perception by the public was that police were trustworthy and committed to catching criminals.
She then moved on to the statistics themselves, noting an overall decrease in contact crimes over the past 10 years, but an increase over the past year. Property related crimes had decreased over the past year. The Other Serious crimes category had seen a decrease.
Police criminality is another driver of crime, said Phiyega, who said her department would keep it's “foot on the pedal” in combating it.
In terms of drug confiscation, she said that cannabis, nyaope and woonga seizures showed that drug use was increasing countrywide.
Despite the increases in violent crime countrywide, Phiyega was insistent that overall - over a 10-year period - it was still on a decline.
She noted a trend, however, in the increase of contact crimes, such as murder, attempted murder and assault GBH, was a “stubborn” element that was difficult to combat.
Four of the nine provinces reported a decrease in contact crimes over the past year, she said.
According to Phiyega, 30 precincts in Gauteng reported almost 45 percent of all of the country's contact crimes.
Phiyega said gangsterism was on the rise in the Western Cape, and constituted a large portion of the murder rate in the province.
Vigilantism is also a major concern for police, alongside illegal mining operations.
Phiyega said she was disturbed that in Gauteng, children between the ages of 10 and 17 committed 47 murders.
She said 1.7 million people were arrested over the past year, a million of which were for serious crimes.
"Contact crimes remain stubborn in this financial year... We require partnerships with the community in terms of that," she said.
She blamed the quantity of media coverage on crime as a possible reason for breeding further contact crimes, as it may inspire copycat criminals.
Moral regeneration programs are crucial, she said, as these could help in the prevention of the normalisation of violence in South African society.
The Star and ANA