Johannesburg -
The breakdown of the family unit, a lack of sustainable employment, poor immigration monitoring and a weak justice system.
These are the major reasons set out for the increases in contact crime in the Joburg Central cluster, which includes Booysens, Joburg Central, Brixton, Fairland, Langlaagte, Moffatview, Mondeor and Sophiatown.
At a media briefing on Thursday, cluster head Brigadier Anton de Bruyn and Community Policing Forum chairman Dr Gulam Karim, who analysed this year’s crime statistics, gave their own opinion on challenges the police face year on year.
According to De Bruyn, the Joburg Central cluster was the “heavyweight” crime hot spot for the province, and one of the biggest in the entire country.
For De Bruyn’s team, organised crime syndicates – often using foreigners to commit the crimes – are a major issue that had upped several key crime statistics. But he said the SAPS were building up a database of these foreign criminals so that should they be arrested for other crimes, they would be linked to the syndicates immediately.
Meanwhile, apathy among Joburg residents is also preventing police from making more arrests.
According to Karim, vital information ended up being lost because residents refused to turn to the police.
But another key issue was the relationship between the SAPS and the Department of Justice. De Bruyn said the SAPS and the department tended to blame each other when criminals walked free, but it was integral that the two streamlined their relationship with one another.
For Karim, however, the spike in drug-related crimes over the past 10 years – as the number of cases reported have quintupled since 2003 – often had to do with the breakdown of family structures. When families broke down, he said, drugs, rape and other violent crimes became more prevalent.
The increase in theft was also due to the lack of sustainable employment in the province, as seen by the increase in shoplifting cases reported.
Karim said while these sort of crimes might seem minor, the justice system was simply not hard enough on small crimes, which were a gateway to larger crimes and therefore should be considered serious.
Police corruption also needed to be combated, according to De Bruyn, who promised that his cluster would not tolerate any form of dishonesty or a lack of integrity.
But while certain contact crimes like murder, attempted murder and sexual offences had marginally increased since last year, the statistics from 2003 reflected a larger decrease over the past decade.
The Star