Despite the President’s boast that South African crime statistics are improving – with reductions in incidents of some serious categories of offences – a shocking report presents evidence that South Africa’s murder statistics are even worse than official statistics have so far admitted.
For every 1000 crimes committed only 430 criminals are arrested. Of these, only 77 are convicted and barely 8 of these are sentenced to two or more years of imprisonment. It is also calculated that South African convicts have a 94% recidivism rate (that is, 94% of all persons released after serving a sentence immediately become involved in crime again).
Serious Under Reporting
Based on original source documents, government archives, the Central Statistics Service, Interpol, the South African Medical Research Council statistics, and many other sources. The Report casts serious doubt on the South African government’s claim that the murder rate has been decreasing.
Victims’ surveys have consistently uncovered between 60% and 70% more crime than reported by official sources. Upwards of 50% of crime in many serious categories goes unreported.
Statistical Discrepancies
While police crime statistics show that there were 21 683 murders in the year 2000, the Medical Research Council puts the figure at 32 482. The MRC’s estimate is close to the figure from the Department of Home Affairs, which is 30 068. This is a third more murders than reported by the SAPS, a discrepancy of more than 10 000 murders.
The Medical Research Council’s statistics reveal that 89 murders are committed, on average, every day in South Africa.
Interpol claims even higher numbers of murders in South Africa. While the SAPS claims that there were 26 883 murders in 1995, Interpol claims that there were 54 298 “murders known to the police” in 1995/96. Interpol’s figures are approximately double the numbers of “recorded murders” in South Africa.
According to Interpol, South Africa has the highest recorded per capita murder rate of the countries covered in their report for 1998, second only to Columbia. In that year, Interpol recorded the per capita murder rate in the USA as 6 per 100 000, while in South Africa it was 59 per 100 000.
Organised Crime
A report from the World Economic Forum claimed widespread corruption in the South African police service – where one in four police officers in the greater Johannesburg were under criminal investigation at the time of the report.
Police estimate that there are currently “about 700 extremely well financed and superbly armed crime syndicates operating in and from South Africa.” However, it was also reported that “not a single ring leader of any of the 700 crime syndicates operating in South Africa has been arrested.”
The Most Murderous Societies On Earth
The Nedcore Project has concluded that: “South Africa and Southern Africa are probably the most murderous societies on earth, even with the probable under-reporting.” The Nedcore Project claims the results of their surveys “underscore the fact that crime has become South Africa’s pre-eminent sociological problem. It now eclipses even unemployment in concerns of all South Africans.”
The bizarre behaviour of the ANC government in, at one stage, imposing a moratorium on crime statistics is also questioned. The report shows that in the first seven years of ANC rule, violence and crime in South Africa increased by 33%, officially.
Worse Than War
The UCA Report on Murder in South Africa reveals that according to the official statistics, in the 44 years from 1950 to 1993, there was an average of 7036 murders per year. This covered the turbulent strife of the apartheid years of warfare, conflict, terrorism, riots and repression.
However, in the first eight years (of peace) of the new democratic dispensation, under the ANC, an average of 24 206 murders were committed each year. However, if the Interpol statistics are accepted, then the murder rate in South Africa during the ANC years has averaged 47 882 per year.
Official Cover Up
Sharp discrepancies between official statistics and those of Interpol and the Medical Research Council are considered. One observer is quoted as saying that the “easiest way for the police to reduce the crime rate is simply to do nothing but record only those crimes where a case number is absolutely mandatory …” Numerous experts are quoted as suspecting “serious under reporting”; “perhaps these figures are concealed for political reasons’; “the reason for this under reporting could be the desire to change the ongoing reputation of South Africa as the crime capital of the world.”
The full report, Murder in South Africa: A Comparison of Past and Present
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