Sometimes you have to take the small victories, like the title of the drug hub of Africa.

Yep, our 2014-2015 crime stats show that drug-related crime increased by 2.4% the past 12 months, enough to take spot from our friends up north. We have also seen a marked increase in truck hijackings (up 29.1%) and car hijackings (up 14.2%), something experts believe can be attributed to organised crime syndicates stepping up their game. Below from TimesLive:

“A recent UN report on organised crime stated that South Africa has become a hub and is providing the rest of Africa with organised crime’s stolen goods,” said [Unisa criminology professor Anthony] Minnaar…

The reason for crime flourishing was the failure of SA Police Service intelligence to infiltrate criminal networks and arrest their leaders.

A Gauteng flying squad commander said those behind crimes, especially truck hijackings, were highly organised.

“They have command structures and payroll masters, teams responsible for the organising of weapons, vehicles and equipment needed for the attacks, and structures solely responsible for arranging buyers for either the truck or the cargo.”

He said criminal gangs were running circles around the police, exploiting loopholes in the intelligence community.

Well this is all a bundle of good news isn’t it, let’s keep that ball rolling with a few more sobering statistics:

The murder rate increased 4.6% to an average of 49 murders a day.

Attempted murders increased by 3.2%, common robbery by 2.7% and aggravated robbery by 8.5%.

There was a 5.4% increase in sexual offences.

But wait, there’s more. Not only are the police being labelled inept at catching criminals, they are now being accused of botched statistics over the past few years:

[Gareth Newham of the Institute for Security Studies] said a sign of how police management had deteriorated was the errors in the police statistics in the past two financial years.

“In 2012-2013 the wrong population figures were used. This year it is basic computing errors, which should be picked up but are creeping in. In the end it boils down to the appointment of people who don’t have the skills for the job. It is simply bad management,” he said.

Sheesh, I really feel like the bad news bear over here so if you feel like delving a little deeper check out the rest of that article HERE.

[source:timeslive]