Durban – Experts say government should be ashamed of the latest crime statistics.
This week, police minister Bheki Cele announced an increase in car-jackings, murder, and acts of gender-based violence for the second quarter of 2022/23.
“There were 7004 people murdered, over 6000 car-jacking cases have been reported in the same period, with national cases increasing by 23% during the period 17 410 gender-based violence cases were reported, an increase of over 5000 cases compared to the last quarter,” Cele said.
Speaking to Radio 702, Institute for Security Studies SA Crime and Justice Information and Analysis Hub manager Lizette Lancaster said police need to rethink their strategy.
“The stats are not surprising, but it is unsettling,” she said.
Lancaster said SAPS leadership needs to be overhauled.
“We have a real crisis of police leadership and inefficiencies at the station level because we are seeing, you know, just deploying visible policing, and I’m not saying it’s wrong, but not necessarily the right places at the wrong at the right time,” she said.
Lancaster said without functioning crime intelligence, they are seeing organised crime syndicates and gangs that have expanded their operations. “There are also more guns on the streets now than we have had in decades. And that is where the problems are, so we need a whole new rethink. We need intelligence-driven operations. We need basics to be applied,” she said.
Lancaster said police also need to work to link dockets to different types of crime because these gangs often perpetrate and are driving these types of crimes.
“We’re talking about mass shootings and such under car-jackings, the kidnappings. They do other crimes, they commit other crimes, they need to be investigated, and cases need to be linked. And we’re not seeing that we are just running around,” she added.
In an interview with eNCA, Professor Jaco Barkhuizen said the government should be ashamed of the levels of crime in SA.
“Crime cuts through every portfolio; unemployment leads to higher crime, higher crime leads to less investment, less investment leads to higher unemployment, and impacts tourism and smaller and medium business,” he explained.
He said this also leads to higher instances of gender-based violence.
“Every person in government, in a position of power, should feel extremely ashamed of the crime stats. People do not trust the police. They do not trust the criminal justice system. If nothing is done soon, then things will get extremely bad very soon,” he said.
