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A crime scene seen cordoned-off.
The Western Cape has recorded an 8.7% reduction in murders for the second quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year.
With the fourth largest reduction, the murder rate is still, however, the second highest in the country.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu released the quarterly statistics in Johannesburg on Monday.
Provincial authorities say while the drop across a number of crime categories which also includes sexual offences, robbery and assault is encouraging, they are forging ahead with efforts to drive these numbers down even more.
Contact crimes, which include murder, attempted murder, and assault with the intention to cause Grievous Bodily Harm, have dropped by 3.1%.
There has also been, for the period under review, a 7.3% reduction in rape cases. Despite this, 1075 rapes were reported in the province between July and September 2024.
‘An achievement’
Western Cape Police Commissioner General Thembisile Patekile says, “Any reduction of crimes, especially on the murder, most feared crimes murders and robberies and all those crimes. Any drop to us is an achievement. But we would want to have more reduction in more of those crimes. Many stations have shown a reduction, especially in murders in the top 30 stations. We are grateful for that because it’s an effort not only by the police but by the communities themselves. There are still those that we must focus on for example if you are looking at Mfuleni, on the part of all contact crimes they top number one. But when we look at crimes like murder and hijacking, they showed a decline so that part of efforts that we should go back and say why are we not achieving certain categories in certain stations.”
There has been a notable drop in murders for some of the police stations which historically rank on the national top 30 list. Delft, Nyanga and Mfuleni have recorded between 9 and 15% decreases.
Philippi East has however recorded 28 more murders, while Harare in Khayelitsha has recorded 27 more compared to the same period last year.
With an additional 100 Anti-Gang Unit members deployed to hotspots and coordination between law enforcement and SAPS, authorities say the progress made is welcomed.
Gang violence and sexual offences remain a blight for communities.
Western Cape MEC for Community Safety and Police oversight, Anroux Marais says, “Talking about the deployment of AGU members to hotspot areas to see the impact, working with leap officers and saps. the western cape has the highest gang-related factors in the country, concerned that the crime levels are still unacceptably high.”
Property-related crimes have seen a 17% drop, with 3010 less incidents. But commercial crimes have increased by over 1 080 cases.
Western Cape Community Policing Forum Chairperson Fransina Lukas adds, “The decrease in murder rate is welcomed but there is concern about the high incidence of crimes against women and children. gang violence causing casualties among children must be addressed.”
Firearms remain the weapon of choice in the province and police say they have confiscated over 400 illegal firearms over the period.
VIDEO | Mchunu’s briefing on the latest crime statistics:
