The South African Police Service (SAPS) recently released their crime statistics for 2018/2019.

Despite the overall decrease in crime (mostly due to the decriminalisation of marijuana and police action on the roads), murder increased by 3,4%, and the weapon most likely to be used is a gun.

A gun is incidentally also the weapon of choice for your average hijacker, which brings us to today’s story. The stats also highlighted the areas most affected by hijackings in South Africa.

BusinessTech notes that, following a low point in 2011/2012, the data shows that carjacking has been on the rise in SA.

The data shows that carjacking (9,417 reported incidents) has steadily increased across the country, with 16,026 reported incidents over the 2018/2019 reporting period.

Most of these incidents occur in Gauteng (7,776), followed by KZN (2,764) and the Western Cape (2,294).

The large majority of these incidents occur within townships, the SAPS said (15,098 cases), with inner-city hijackings coming a distant second (1,534 cases). This is followed by remote areas (445), national highways (110) and suburbs (97).

In almost every reported hijacking the victim was subject to some form of assault, including “grabbing, shooting, striking, stabbing, slapping and verbal assaults”.

30 areas stood out as having the most reported hijackings in South Africa. Cape Town didn’t feature on the list, but Capetonians would do well to take note of these hijacking hotspots.

What follows is a table showing the top 10 areas with the most reported hijackings over the last year.

BusinessTech

Gauteng is not looking good, either.

Given that SAPS is in the process of releasing a new crime-fighting app for use by the general public, I see no shortage of tip-offs.

You can check out the full top 30 list, here. 

[source:businesstech]