Cape Town police stations lead in SA murder statistics

Half of the 10 police stations that recorded most murders in South Africa are located in Cape Town.

They are Philippi East with 74 murders followed by Delft with 68, Nyanga, 64, Mfuleni, 58, and Gugulethu with 55.

These figures emerged when Police Minister Senzo Mchunu released the crime statistics for the second quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year, from July 1 to September 30, 2024.

Nationally there were 6 545 murders, 12 765 sexual offences and 42 721 cases of assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm over this three month period.

Reacting to the statistics, GOOD City of Cape Town councillor Jonathan Cupido criticised the City of Cape Town’s “army of Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) officers” as being of little effect to the persistently high crime figures in the city.

“Cape Town still has 5 of the 10 police stations that recorded the most contact crimes in the country. Khayelitsha saw the highest spike in the country, with an additional 109 crimes reported, a total of 820 crimes reported at the station in 3 months.

“Cape Town also makes up 5 of the top 10 police stations that recorded the most murders. The Cape Town stations that feature account for a combined 319 murders in just 3 months.

“People in the Cape Flats live in constant fear because of gang violence.

Out of the 221 gang-related murders reported nationally in 3 months, 177 occurred in the Western Cape. Clearly the number of boots on the ground is not having the desired impact on crime in the city,” said Cupido.

He said the root cause of crime needed to be addressed.

Safety and security Mayco member, JP Smith said the latest crime statistics were encouraging, with gains in a number of Cape Town’s crime hotspots.

“Not only has serious crime dropped in areas like Delft, Nyanga and Mitchells Plain, but crimes dependent on police action like the recovery of contraband, narcotics and illegal firearms have increased.

“This is a feather in the cap of the officers who do daily patrols in some of our most crime-ravaged areas. The Philippi policing precinct, which includes Hanover Park, had the highest number of firearms recovered (60), with Manenberg in 3rd (54).

“Philippi East remains a concern, particularly around the rate of murders and car-jacking incidents; so too the increase in robberies in Cape Town Central and Bishop Lavis. These statistics will guide future interventions and the City will work closely with SAPS and the Western Cape Government to determine how our efforts need to be augmented.”

The crime statistics report highlights 21 priority crimes, divided into two main types: 17 community-reported serious crimes, categorised into contact, contact-related, property-related, and other serious crimes, and four crimes identified through police action.

Cape Town central station was the number one station in the country for 17 community-reported serious crimes with 3 008 cases, while Mitchells Plain was number three with 1 876.

From July 1 to September 30, the 17 community reported serious crimes showed an overall decline of 5.1%.

Specifically, contact crime decreased by 3.0%, property-related crime saw a reduction of 9.9%, and other serious crime decreased by 3.4%.

Focusing on contact crime, the statistics indicate that murder decreased by 5,8%, sexual offenses by 2.5%, and robbery with aggravating circumstances by 8,8%”.

“Among the 17 community reported crime categories monitored, the only increases were observed in attempted murder, assault GBH and commercial crime, which rose by 2.2%, 1.0% and 18.5% respectively.”

Unisa Professor in the Department of Police Practice, Dumisani Mabunda said while the reductions in crime were positive, the concern was a lack of detail around how these sudden reductions were achieved.

“It will be interesting to establish factors behind certain reductions.

“Some of these crimes were those the previous minister battled with for the longest time.

“Suddenly we are told there’s a reduction. “What actually happened and how was this was achieved? We need more detail. My hope is also that in the next budget, he will convince the Treasury to increase the policing budget. We don’t want to wait for crime to happen to be concerned about the lack of detectives or visible policing,” Mabunda said.

Cape Times