Johannesburg - The latest crime statistics released on Friday show South Africa has become a more violent country, the Freedom Front Plus said on Friday.
“Violent crime which affects people directly, like murder, robbery and carjackings, has increased considerably,” FF MP Pieter Groenewald said in a statement.
“South Africa's murder figure is therefore nearly five times that of the world average.”
Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko and national commissioner Riah Phiyega released the 2013/2014 annual crime statistics in Pretoria on Friday.
The figure for murder was reported as 17068.
Groenewald said the accuracy of the figures was questionable “as police stations did not report the correct category of crimes”.
The current statistics were outdated and covered the period April 2013 to March 2014, he said.
“A robbery is sometimes reported as theft and many robberies are not reported at all. Crime statistics should also be released more often and should be announced every quarter,” Groenewald said.
AfriForum called for community policing to be improved.
“The statistics show that basic crimes are not being countered by the police. The solution to violent crimes is a combination of efficient crime intelligence and swift response to crime call-outs,” AfriForum community safety head Ian Cameron said in a statement.
Communities should be empowered on a bigger scale through efficient neighbourhood watches and reservist systems correctly implemented, Cameron said.
The organisation's criminologist, Lorraine Claasen, said the increase in violent crimes, including robbery, robbery with aggravating circumstances, and murder was disturbing.
“Robbery can turn into murder in a matter of seconds. The increase in illegal weapons reported by the police contributes to the problem.”
Non-governmental organisations Ndifuna Kwazi and the Social Justice Coalition said accurate performance measures were needed to assess the success of crime prevention and combating strategies.
“If crime statistics are going to be used as a reliable measure they should be disaggregated into more and less policeable crimes,” the organisations said in a joint statement.
“In addition, crimes such as vigilantism and xenophobic crime need to be classified as such so that a proper response can be developed.”
The police should implement the guidelines of the O'Regan/Pikoli Commission of Inquiry's report released in August, the organisations said.
The recommendations included publishing station-level crime statistics monthly on notice boards at community centres to improve relations between police and the community.
The commission also identified credible quarterly analysis of crime statistics as an important way to ensure the usefulness of statistics.
The commission held public hearings to investigate allegations of police inefficiency and a breakdown in relations between the community and the police in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.
Sapa