Johannesburg - Gauteng is well on its way to becoming a gangsters’ paradise, with a sharp increase this year in almost all contact crimes, house robberies, and a massive spike in carjackings and truck hijackings.
Ivory Park was the most dangerous place in Gauteng last year.
That policing area recorded 98 murders during 2014/15, a big jump from the 80 of the previous year.
Gauteng, the second most violent province after KwaZulu-Natal, recorded 3 671 murders - meaning a 10 percent increase in the number of murders.
The 10 stations that recorded the most murders in Gauteng were Ivory Park 98, Roodepoort 86, Joburg Central 84, Dobsonville 82, Evaton 82, Mamelodi East 80, Tembisa 79, Thokoza 76, Jeppe 72 and Springs 69.
The bloodiest areas include Soshanguve, with a 155 percent increase from nine murders in 2013/14 to 23 in 2014/15, and Germiston, with a 133 percent increase from 18 to 42 murders.
These stations also had huge increases in murder: Eldorado Park jumped from 24 to 44 murders, Lenasia South from 12 to 22, Langlaagte from 13 to 23, Lenasia from 25 to 44, Thokoza from 44 to 76 and Evaton from 48 to 82.
Big reductions in murder cases included: Fochville from 54 to 26 murders, Meyerton from 25 to 14 and Krugersdorp from 29 to 19.
Gauteng was also the most dangerous province for car and truck hijacking. There were 6 867 carjackings in the province last year, an increase of 13.4 percent, while truck hijackings saw a massive 47 percent increase.
The most dangerous areas in Gauteng were Booysens, with 220 car hijackings, Jeppe (178), Moffat View (164), Alexandra (143), Tembisa (142), Rietgat (133), Roodepoort (129), Ivory Park (127), Florida (119), Akasia (117), Soshanguve (116), Kagiso (115), Dobsonville (113), Cleveland (110) and Pretoria West (110).
Robberies with aggravating circumstances have gone up by 11.4 percent, jumping from 42 506 to 47 362 cases.
Gauteng also topped the national list for home and business robberies. Residential robberies increased by 9.9 percent, and business robberies also saw a 5 percent increase.
The areas most hit by home invasions (house robberies) were Honeydew (438), Roodepoort (221), Ivory Park (212), Sandton (212), Mondeor (151), Parkview (142), Midrand (139), Akasia (131), Springs (131) and Booysens (127).
The areas with the most business robberies were Joburg Central (214), Temba (141), Orange Farm (117), Hillbrow (116), Kempton Park (116), Springs (111), Evaton (110), Tembisa (110), Kagiso (108) and Germiston (103).
In Gauteng, police were most likely to seize illegal weapons in Norwood (139), Hillbrow (99), Orange Farm (97), Tembisa (96), Ivory Park (87), Jeppe (85), Alexandra (82), Joburg Central (78), Moroka (70) and Vosloorus (69).
The only contact crimes to drop in Gauteng were sexual offences, dropping by 3.5 percent. But 9 902 of these cases were still logged in the past year. There was also a drop in common assault cases, which went down by 2.8 percent.
However, experts from the Institute for Security Studies have stated numerous times in the past that these two crime categories are the least likely to be reported to police stations if trust in the police is low. This means a decrease in the numbers is not necessarily a victory for the SAPS.
The only other major decreases were a 5.9 percent decline in drug-related crimes, 10.5 percent in commercial crimes and a 35 percent drop in cash-in-transit robberies.
On Tuesday, both Police Minister Nathi Nhleko and national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega noted in their addresses to the police portfolio committee that over a 10-year period, the overall incidence of contact crime had seen a significant decrease.
This included vicious crimes such as murder, attempted murder, rape, assault and armed robbery. But looking at the figures for the past three years, violent crime has undeniably increased countrywide.
Phiyega also noted that the 30 precincts in Gauteng had reported almost 45 percent of the country’s contact crimes.
“Contact crimes remain stubborn in this financial year… We require partnerships with the community in terms of that,” the national commissioner said.
She was also disturbed to discover that 47 murders in Gauteng were committed by children aged between 10 and 17.
Vigilantism, illegal mining, taxi violence and the number of illegal firearms circulating across the country were also high on Phiyega’s list of factors that contributed to the rising crime rates.
But she also blamed the media for its large amount of crime coverage, which she believed led to copycat incidents.
The commissioner believed that moral regeneration programmes could help to address the issue of violence across the country, hopefully preventing crime before it occurs.