Durban - Massive discrepancies and inexplicable data entries have been detected in the SAPS’ annual crime statistics, which showed some KwaZulu-Natal police stations with a 100 percent drop in crime and other areas - not known for crime - had spikes of up to 6 000 percent.
Five days after the crime statistics were released, the inaccurate data remained on the SAPS website.
They show that numerous KZN police stations appeared to have won the war on crime while others were failing hopelessly.
The Daily News has sifted through dozens of entries posted by the SAPS for various suburbs and has picked up some startling statistics that the police top brass have yet to explain.
For example, Westville police station had opened a remarkable 192 cases of stock theft compared to nil in the past nine years. The station had also managed to cut down robbery with aggravating circumstances from 219 to just 41 in one year; house robberies from 102 to 21; house burglaries from 769 to 150 and theft of, or from, motor vehicles from 108 to just 4.
Remarkably, for an area that has three major shopping centres in its patrol area, including the Pavilion, one of the province’s biggest, in its patrol area, shoplifting had dropped from a high of 524 in 2005 to just one case over the past year.
Umzinto crime, according to the statistics released on Friday, decreased by 100 percent - with no burglaries, carjackings, house robberies or business robberies being reported.
6 000% up
Nottingham Road police station, located in the picturesque KZN Midlands, a popular destination for local and international tourists, showed that robbery with aggravating circumstances went from 7 last year to 439 this year - a 6 000 percent increase. Common robbery in Nottingham Road jumped from 2 to 77 while common assault leaped from 20 to 221.
While the police refused to answer questions from the Daily News, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) said the wrong figures were a result of police statisticians “copying and pasting the wrong data” into an Excel spreadsheet.
This resulted in incorrect figures for KZN and Limpopo.
Lizette Lancaster, manager of the ISS’s Crime Hub, said they noticed the anomalies on Friday while inputting the police crime statistics into their crime hub database.
She said they had realised that figures were “glaringly wrong”.
“We were extremely worried and tried the whole weekend to alert the police but we could not get hold of anyone.”
Lancaster said senior officers contacted the ISS on Monday and conceded that they had made an error when importing the data into the spreadsheet.
“It was a simple case of them copying and pasting the wrong figures into the Excel spreadsheet. It seems to be a bad bug because if one noticed the first few police stations seemed right but as you went down, the figures were out,” she said.
“I don’t think there is anything to be alarmed by, though.”
Lancaster said police management promised to change the incorrect figures on Monday.
The statistics from many other KZN stations also appear suspect and have been brought to the attention of national policing authorities by the Daily News.
National police spokesman, Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale, said he was not aware of the discrepancies but undertook to look into the matter.
Provincial police spokesman, Captain Thulani Zwane, in response to a detailed list of questions by the Daily News, said: “Unfortunately, we cannot entertain any such requests at this stage. The provincial commissioner will be holding an official press briefing on the provincial crime (statistics) soon.”
Dr Chris de Kock, who headed the SAPS crime and information analysis centre for 18 years before retiring last year, said police management should have taken down the figures the moment they realised they were wrong.
He said at first glance it was obvious that “there was something very wrong with these figures”.
“It is strange that they would keep the wrong figures on the website for four days. It just shows the disregard they have for crime statistics.”
De Kock, a researcher who has worked for the Human Sciences Research Council, said the police allowing the wrong statistics to remain online raised questions about their ability.
Checked
“When I was still there I checked it personally and I had a team that checked it and I made sure the provincial commissioners checked it before it was signed off. You have to check these things before you put them online... If you take the example of Nottingham Road which had 7 aggravated robberies last year which suddenly jumps to 439 that should have rung alarm bells,” he said.
“Tourists reading those figures would never go there again. All those hotels will close.”
Satish Dhupelia of the Sydenham community police forum said the statistics were questionable.
“I know of four people who were hijacked in the Sydenham policing area. This is why we are calling for transparency. I am going to write up to all levels of police management. This is not a true reflection of crime,” he said.
“There was no improved policing and new crime strategies that could have helped crime come down. It is a mockery.”
Sydenham statistics show there were only 7 house robberies and burglaries down from 685 to 132, common assault 266 to 38 this year, aggravated robbery plunged from 373 to 31.
On the flip side, crime in Malvern appears to have rocketed, with the number of assault with intent to inflict serious bodily harm cases rising from 27 to 386. Robbery was up from 15 to 126, malicious injury to property from 34 to 252 and kidnapping up from one to 18.
Montclair saw a drastic increase in sexual crimes, from 36 to 383 and theft of or from motor vehicles from 253 to 928.
In Margate burglary at residential premises dropped from a staggering 1 060 to 90 and theft out of motor vehicle is down from 140 to seven. There were no shoplifting incidents there despite 233 being reported last year.
Sex crimes
In Mid-Illovo, sex crimes increased from 10 to 244, while assault increased from 19 to a whopping 712. Residential burglaries increased from 20 to 1 149.
While national police commissioner, General Riah Piyega, said the stats were audited, the DA’s spokeswoman on policing matters, MP Dianne Kohler Barnard, said she found them hard to believe.
She said allowing the police to package and present the crime statistics was like letting a matric student mark his own exam script.
“Police around the country are forced to downplay the severity of a crime. House break-ins are downgraded to malicious damage to property (a lesser offence). When a woman arrives at a station severely beaten and bleeding, and is written up in the DVA (Domestic Violence Act) register and sent off to get a protection order, this does not appear in the statistics. Some stations are told not to open dockets.
“They will hold dockets back till after midnight at the end of the month, so that the crimes are reported for the following month,” said Kohler Barnard.
“I do not believe the statistics, and in any case they are of no use to anyone as they are up to 18 months old.
“We should have transparent crime stats available at all stations so that homeowners are able to find out if there is any threat to them, such as carjackers targeting their area.”
The DA on Monday called on the KZN Community Safety MEC, Willies Mchunu, to release crime statistics for the province every month.
“Not only would monthly crime stats greatly benefit SAPS intelligence, crime fighting strategies and police oversight - they would also assist communities in their own war against this plague,” the DA said in a statement.
The call comes after the Western Cape announced that monthly crime figures would soon be available to the public.
Daily News