Bambile Police Minister, Professor Firoz Cachalia, has expressed great concern over the increase in incidents of violence and crime in the country, which is a big problem because they are being attacked in their own homes.
Cachalia said this while speaking at a press conference in Pretoria, Friday, where he was going to announce the crime statistics in the country for the first quarter of the year between January 1 to March 31.
In his speech, he lamented that they are saddened by the increasing number of crimes committed by people living in rural areas, as he revealed that there were 1,523 incidents of people being killed in rural areas or in the areas where they live.
“Another thing that concerns us is that 47.2% of rape cases are in their own homes. 4,620 of the 9,782 rape cases are by people they know and are in their own homes,” he said.
He revealed that their research on these incidents revealed that conflicts, attacks of people with the intention of revenge, self-punishment and excessive consumption of alcohol lead to an increase in incidents of violence.
“In this quarter alone, 898 homicides resulted from such situations, while 299 occurred because of people who made their own decisions according to the law. Excessive alcohol consumption also contributes to this as the police reported that there were 7,267 cases involving assault, sexual assault, attempted murder and murder that occurred due to the influence of alcohol,” said Cachalia.
He revealed that although there was a decrease of 546 homicides in this quarter when compared to the same period last year, from 5,727 to 5,181 – but that does not mean that the situation has improved. as the crime rate is high throughout the country.
“The level of crime and violence is still very high in our country, so the decrease in killings does not mean that the country is safe as other types of crime are still high,” he said.
The MEC also revealed that statistics show that the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 80% of the murders in the country.
He said the Eastern Cape had the highest number of murders, followed by the Western Cape, Gauteng and KZN.
The MEC also complained that they found that in Gauteng the number of organized crime incidents increased, including 57.1% of carjacking incidents, 54.85% of kidnappings and 48.4% of carjackings or blowing up cash machines.
Cachalia announced that a police reset agenda has been created, the purpose of which is to ensure that the police work with integrity, and to prevent acts of corruption, and to strengthen security and investigate different cases.