AfriForum has questioned the accuracy of the latest national crime statistics due to the South African Police Services' (SAPS) "flawed" record keeping.
This comes after Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu, released the third quarter crime statistics for 2024/2025 on Friday and revealed a significant crime reduction.
AfriForum questioned whether the statistics truly captured the reality faced by communities across the country.
“Although the Minister’s positive attitude towards promoting cooperation between communities and law enforcement is commendable, AfriForum remains sceptical about the latest crime statistics,” said AfriForum’s Chief Spokesperson for Community Safety, Jacques Broodryk.
Broodryk said AfriForum's Neighbourhood and Farm Watches, who deal with all sorts of crimes at a grassroots level, have not noticed any significant difference in crime patterns during this time.
"On the contrary, AfriForum Farm and Neighbourhood Watches have been dealing with burglaries and stock theft cases on a weekly basis for the past few months," he said.
The lobby group said if SAPS cannot accurately record crime in the country, it was hard for it to have confidence in their ability to combat it effectively.
it also raises the question of whether the statistics truly capture the reality that communities across South Africa are facing.
“AfriForum continues to advocate for the devolution of policing powers to regional and local levels, allowing communities to better respond to their specific safety challenges. Farm attacks and other rural crimes require specialised rural policing units that are familiar with the environment and have a steady stream of local crime intelligence.
"Gang violence in urban areas requires targeted interventions led by regional crime specialists with knowledge of the area's challenges. Taxi violence and murders related to illegal mining operations require law enforcement strategies that are specific to the regions concerned and feasible to execute in those areas. This is just one of the reasons why the devolution of policing powers makes sense,” said Broodryk.
Earlier, Mchunu said the provinces that contributed the greatest number of murder cases during this period were:
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- Gauteng: 25%
- KwaZulu-Natal: 21.4%
- Eastern Cape: 18.9%
- Western Cape: 17.4%
A total of 6,953 murders were recorded during the third quarter, which has shown a decrease of 9.8%.
He said firearms remain a weapon of choice during crimes and of 2,886 of the cases reported, people were killed by the use of a firearm.
The Western Cape recorded the highest number of gang-related murders in the country, accounting for 263 cases during the third quarter.
A large number of the murders took place in Bishop Lavis, Mitchells Plain, Delft, Kleinvlei, and Elsies River.
Stock theft has decreased by 4.5%, however, the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Eastern Cape face challenges in this regard.
Mchunu said interventions will be put in place to address the theft of livestock in these provinces.
“No one should consider themselves to be untouchable. This is also a warning to those who target police in their criminal activities,” Mchunu said.
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A total of 13 police officers were killed during this period, five on-duty while eight were off-duty.
Sexual offences also saw a 2% decline. A total of 3.3% decline in rape cases and a notable decline was seen in carjacking and robberies at both residential and non-residential premises.
Mchunu said with kidnappings, most of the crimes were being orchestrated from prison.
“The most recent case [of kidnapping] in Nelson Mandela Bay was orchestrated from St Alban’s prison, surely prisoners elsewhere are behaving in the same way. Even the mastermind of the Lusisiki [mass] murders was found will cellphones again. He was even moved but he still has access. What he is doing, we don’t know. But I want to ask the Department of Correctional Services to take decisive action. This is a burn on police but also an embarrassment to the whole country,” Mchunu said.
He said these reductions indicate the strategies implemented by police have yielded results.
“Police visibility played a critical role in crime prevention,” Mchunu said.
A total of 244,951 arrests were made during the Safer Festive Season operations. More than 2 million patrols were conducted, with more than 4,600 roadblocks being carried, 620,000 stop and searches were conducted, and more than 2 million persons were searched throughout the country.
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