Once a year, we, as citizens of South Africa, get a wad of stats from the SAPS, breaking down the various crimes that have taken place throughout the country.
The only thing is, the crimes only reflect those that have been reported – and many people don’t report crimes because they deem the SAPS a little useless at times. Pity.
As a result, many look to private security firms as backup and one such company, Fidelity ADT, has released their own crime trends, based on security data collected over the course of 2017, reports Business Tech:
The security company is currently the biggest in South Africa with more than 370,000 employees, over 30% of market share in the country, and over 10% geographical coverage.
National subscriber sales manager at Fidelity ADT, Rob Dale, explained that “despite its size and coverage, Fidelity ADT’s security and crime trends tend to differ from national SAPS data because its clients are typically middle- or upper-income home owners in the 7-10 LSM range”:
“The SAPS have their own challenges and difficulties and understandably send their resources to the highest crime areas – which are typically lower-income,” he said.
“This opens up space for the private security industry in South Africa, who are more present in higher-income areas, and where you will typically find the taxpayer.”
Okay okay, so you want the numbers? Let’s take a look:
On average, Fidelity ADT said it receives around 16 000 alarm notifications a day, of which it responds to around 6 000. Why? Because of false alarms, people failing to answer the phone, and those who accidentally trigger the system.
But, for those that aren’t false alarms, here’s the following monthly averages of crime alerts ADT responds to:
- Armed Robbery – 98
- Robbery – 15
- House Breaking and theft – 426
- Hijacking – 7
- Shooting – 4
Based on this data, Fidelity ADT broke down four further crime trends it has noticed popping up across its network:
- All categories of crime typically increase from Wednesday through to Sunday, with Mondays and Tuesdays being quieter.
- Armed robberies are most common between noon and midnight (with a slight peak between 12:00 and 18:00).
- House break-ins and theft are most common from midnight to noon (although this slightly skewed as residents sometimes only notice a break-in in the morning and as a result typically report the crime after it has occurred).
- Hijackings and common theft peak in the early morning and again in the early evening.
And here’s a handy map, for those of you who are all about the graphics:
Using regional data, Fidelity ADT also “broke down its crime trends into serious and ‘other’ incidents”:
Fidelity ADT found that, while the total number of incidents were more or less the same across Gauteng and the Western Cape, there was a clear difference in the number of serious incidents between the two provinces.
You can find the breakdown of this regional data below:
[‘North’ refers to Nothern Gauteng (ie Pretoria and surrounds), while ‘Central’ refers to Johannesburg and the surrounds.]
And there you have it.
[source:businesstech]
