Durban - KwaZulu-Natal showed a decrease in some of the crimes that people fear the most, including car hijackings and house robberies.
However, while there was a 5.45% increase in murders in KZN, to 3 810, the province had the third-highest murder rate, at 35.6 murders per 100 000 of the population.
The highest rate was the Western Cape’s 52.09 per 100 000, followed by the Eastern Cape’s 48.9 per 100 000.
In KZN there was a 2% increase in business robberies and a 37% increase in truck hijackings (up to 63).
Drug-related crimes and a new category of sexual offences, separate from the statistics for total sexual offences, also increased, but police say increases in these categories were positive indicators as these crimes could only be detected if police were doing their job.
Provincial police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni said on Tuesday that KZN had been recognised as one of the top three provinces for crime reduction by national commissioner Riah Phiyega.
Ngobeni said she was pleased that there had been a decrease in some crime categories but acknowledged that more needed to be done to ensure communities were safe.
Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Gareth Newham said compared to other provinces, KZN did fall under “good news”, along with the Free State, the Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape.
However, Newham said that KZN statistics for murder, which was the “most reliable statistic because all deaths had to be registered”, was worryingly high.
Reductions in other crime categories were not huge and did not suggest that KZN had made “major inroads”, he said.
The decrease in certain crimes could be due to a number of factors including better relationships between community bodies and the police.
Regarding the new category of sexual offences, Newham said he was not sure what crimes fell under the category but that police commissioner General Riah Phiyega had spoken of prostitution and child pornography in this section.
The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Jean Steyn, of the criminology and forensic studies department, said the violent crime statistics were worrying.
“A closer inspection of the provincial statistics showed that on average, 10 people were murdered, a further 10 people reported attempted murders, while an additional 80 complained of assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm every day in KZN”.
KZN community police forum chairman Desmond Mntambo attributed the decreases in some crimes to the improved partnership between the police and the community.
“We have recently seen more people coming in and working with police to fight crime in their areas,” he said.
Mntambo said he was troubled by the increase in the number of murders in the province by 194 cases.
He said CPFs were currently running a programme called Citizens on Patrol and they were confident it would yield positive results.
“The stats indicated that murders happen between 6pm and 12am, so when there is a tavern that opens until 2am, we question that because the people who leave the tavern are likely to commit or be victims of murder. Citizens on Patrol deals with such issues.”
Blue Security’s operation manager, Brian Jackson, agreed that communities were working with police and security companies.
“We attribute the drop in residential armed robberies and housebreakings to the fact that residents are working more closely together to report suspicious activity before criminals get the chance to strike. They are using social media to alert neighbours and are then contacting their security companies and the police to effect arrests,” he said.
The Mercury