[imagesource:flickr]

On Tuesday, the police minister was briefing the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on South Africa’s crime statistics for the fourth quarter, and to say that Bheki Cele is running a shit show is a bit of an understatement.

How he sat there and read the shocking stats, showing most crimes increased since the same period last year, is beyond any reasonable person with a general moral compass.

Under his ‘watch’ 6 289 people were murdered between January and March 2023 by violent means involving firearms, knives, sharp and blunt instruments, stones, and even bare hands. This is a 3,4% increase when compared to the same period last year.

Cele had the gall to say that police would try to improve the situation, but one has to wonder if he has any concept of the kind of work that actually needs to get done in order to bring these numbers down. Perhaps it has less to do with giving the boys cool tech to play with and more about reforming the whole institution with proper ongoing training.

The Citizen notes that the provinces most affected by this surge in murders were KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Western Cape and Gauteng. In fact, KZN dominates the ‘murder hotspots’ list, with the Umlazi police station having reported the most murders – 68 cases between January and March 2023.

Would you look at that, only Delft in the Western Cape features, third on the list with 60 reported murders:

In fact, the Western Cape, along with the Free State and Northern Cape, reported decreases in murder rates.

KZN police stations also topped the list for reported rape incidents, including Inanda Police Station at number one, Umlazi at number four and Empangeni at seven.

While violent crimes including armed robberies, hijackings and cash-in-transit robberies are on the increase, sexual offences have decreased some. The only problem is, they’re still too high to begin with.

Per IOL, more than 13 000 sexual offences were reported during this period, while there were 500 fewer cases than in the corresponding period last year.

There have been promises of more boots on the ground, as well as a R65 million budget injection allocated to the top 30 crime-heavy police stations to combat murder and other contact crimes.

Mmmhmm.

[source:citizen]