Grahamstown residents who've felt under siege during the past year haven't been imagining it. According to police statistics released yesterday, the number of robberies in the town has increased significantly, along with other crimes.
Grahamstown residents who've felt under siege during the past year haven't been imagining it. According to police statistics released yesterday, the number of robberies in the town has increased significantly, along with other crimes.
While there has been a welcome decline in Grahamstown's murder rate – 35 in the year April 2010 to March 2011 compared to the previous year's 42 – there has been a significant increase in common robbery, from 117 to 165, and robbery with aggravating circumstances, from 252 to 344.
This is 300 more than in 2003/2004, when only 44 cases were recorded. Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa announced the release of the latest statistics at a hotel in Pretoria yesterday. He highlighted the declining number of murders in the country, saying the national total for the year ending 31 March 2011 was 15 940, compared to 16 834 in the previous year.
The 894 decline in murders represents a decrease of 5.3% from the 2009/2010 total. Mthethwa noted that the current number of murders represented a massive decrease from the more than 27 000 people murdered in 1994. He was concerned, however, about the persistently high number of rapes that occur in the country.
Nationally, just over 66 000 sex crimes were committed last year – an annual figure that has remained virtually unchanged over the past eight years. Provincial statistics reveal that the murder rate in the Eastern Cape has dropped only slightly, from 3 218 in 2010/2011 to 3 187 last year.
Comparing figures for the two most recent periods, there has been an increase in the number of sex crimes from 9 047 to 9 380, while there are fewer assaults, residential burglaries and vehicle thefts in this province.
In Grahamstown, the number of cases in the category of sexual offences has remained relatively constant over the past six years, with a figure of 173 in the 2006/2007 period to the 176 in the most recent set of figures. Stats for attempted murder appear to vary considerably from year to year, bobbing up and down cyclically between 48 and 25.
The broad category, headlined “Crimes heavily dependent on police action for detection” shows that between 2008/2009 and the latest period there has been a decrease in the number of drug-related crimes from 147 to 106 and an even larger decrease in the number of cases for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs from 232 to 89.
Categories covering property related crimes in Grahamstown reflect the crime upswing (see accompanying table). Other figures worth noting in the latest release of crime statistics for Grahamstown include seven cases of kidnapping – the highest figure ever for this category; 12 cases of neglect and ill-treatment of children and 126 cases of crimen injuria.
Riebeeck East
Riebeeck East remains one of the safest places in the country, with the local police station having recorded no murders since the 2008/2009 year – although there were two cases of culpable homicide. There weren’t any attempted murders in the year from April 2010 to March 2011, but there were 16 cases of assault and three sex crimes.
In the property related section for Riebeeck East, four robberies at residential premises were recorded, but there has not been a single robbery at non-residential premises since the April 2004 to March 2005 reporting year. If you are looking for a good place to park your car, Riebeeck East might be the answer, because not one motor vehicle has been reported stolen at the local police station in the last five years.
Bathurst
Crime in Bathurst has been fairly consistent. The number of murders has been between three and four every year for the past six years, while the number of sexual offences has hovered around 20 over the same period. The number of stolen cars in Bathurst has dropped dramatically from 15 to only one in the most recent reporting year.
Seven Fountains
One person was murdered in Seven Fountains in the past year and none in the year before.
The number of sex crimes declined from five to two. The number of assaults with intent to do grievous bodily harm remains constant, at 14 cases during the past two years, but substantially down from the high of 37 recorded in the April 2004 to March 2005 period. No vehicles have been reported stolen at Seven Fountains in the past two years.
