South Africa: Most-Feared Crimes Show Steep Rise
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The crimes that South Africans fear the most -- attacks at their homes,
places of work and cars -- have substantially increased, national crime
figures released by Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa yesterday revealed .
Mthethwa, making a special statement to the National Assembly, said that
small and informal businesses had borne the brunt of the crime wave.
Robberies at these categories of businesses accounted for more than 66%
of robberies at non- residential premises.
While murder and attempted murder continued their downward trend with
decreases of between 3% and 4%, more than 18000 South Africans were
still killed between April last year and March this year.
Robberies, as opposed to burglaries, from businesses were up a
staggering 41,1%, robberies from homes 27,3%, carjacking by 5% and
truckjacking 15,4%. Robberies from larger businesses, bank robberies and
cash- in-transit heists were down as these entities were more able to
take measures to protect themselves, while smaller businesses were
largely defenceless and were almost certain to have cash on the premises.
Mthethwa, who took a drubbing from opposition parties for releasing
statistics only once a year, said his department was deeply concerned at
the increase in house robberies because it was intolerable that people
were not safe in their own homes. T he increases in business robberies
had to get urgent attention because it led to loss of jobs and income.
He said contact crime, which was generally associated with violence, and
constituted 32% of all crime, was down in five of seven categories.
Democratic Alliance MP Dianne Kohler Barnard accused Mthethwa of
reneging on an undertaking to publish statistics twice a year because
the ruling party did not want to reveal the deteriorating situation
before the April election.
"The 2008-09 crime statistics reveal a serious deterioration of the
crime outlook in SA, with significant increases in crime in a number of
key areas -- including sexual offences, robberies, business and
commercial crime, vehicle hijackings and stock theft. Clearly these are
numbers that the ANC would not have risked releasing publicly in the
run-up to a national election," she said.
Inkatha Freedom Party MP Velaphi Ndlovu said: "South Africans are being
driven further and further apart, afraid even to look each other in the
eye, because every headline screams 'crime' and every family has a story
of tragedy and injustice. The numbers before us are more than indicators
of failure; they are the evidence of a malaise that SA must not be
allowed to succumb to."
Independent Democrats MP Joe Mcgluwa raised allegations of considerable
police underreporting of crime at a number of police stations. The
increase in violent robberies was "also extremely disturbing".
Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald said: "The murder figure is now
37,3 per 100000 , but the world average is five per 100000. "
South Africa's descent into complete niggafuxation continues 
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