Chantelle Benjamin
5 December 2008
Johannesburg — CUTTING SA's murder rate is seen as one of the police's biggest successes in their fight against crime, but experts warn that at the present rate of decrease it would take 15 years for the rate to get close to the international norm.
A study of the state's response to crime and security in SA, which is to become the basis of a court action by civic group AfriForum, puts crime successes into perspective, giving an indication of why South Africans continue to feel threatened despite reassurance from the government that the overall crime rate has decreased.
Institute for Security Studies (ISS) head researcher Johan Burger said this week an analysis of crime figures showed crime was coming down but from a very high level, and that the decrease had slowed down over the past three years.
Murder over an 11-year period, from 1994-2006, decreased 41%, increasing slightly in 2006-07 before dropping 4,7% last year. This has been hailed by the South African Police Service as a victory, but at present SA's murder rate is 38 people per 100000, against an international norm of five per 100000 and rates of one per 100000 or less in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
In the US, with six times SA's population, 16692 people were murdered last year, while 18793 were murdered in SA.
" Our calculations tell us that at the present rate of decrease it would take us another 15 years to reach acceptable international rates," said Burger.
He is critical, however, of crime-fighting plans put forward by opposition parties, which all involve increasing the number of policemen, saying there is no evidence this works in SA or other countries. "If you consider that the police increased from 55000 to 175000 since 2000 and violent crime is up, then it suggests another solution is necessary," said Burger. "We believe that a crime strategy can only work if all the relevant departments play their role."
He said success could not be achieved by the police alone.
It is this belief that prompted AfriForum to look into a legal challenge to force the government as a whole to address the crime problem and to properly implement the many policies it has that are gathering dust.
Of concern is that the increasing violence in crime, particularly in relation to aggravated robberies, is in line with international trends, according to the ISS research.
In a report looking at crime figures for the US, it was found that not only was "robbery becoming more prevalent, but also more deadly". A US police chief observed in the report: "A disturbing aspect in the number of robberies was that upon completion of the robbery, the victim was shot anyway."
Burger says as the situation stands, with the police operating in isolation, SA will not reduce crime to acceptable levels, and not in the next five years.
"There is only so much the police can do. They will eventually reach a ceiling and crime reduction will stagnate. The police will just become overburdened and over-blamed."
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