In September, we released a story that lamented South Africa’s worsening crime statistics. At the time of release, those statistics were considered to be ‘the worst crime statistics in 10 years’. Well, it turns out that the reality is a lot more worse than worst.

The Institute for Security Studies did a bit of research themselves and found some, shall we say, “inaccuracies”.

Those crime statistics that we thought to be the worst in 10 years, actually didn’t reflect the true extent of the crime in our country. That is to say, they were not only wrong, but grossly miscalculated to the extent that “South Africans don’t have an accurate picture of the threats they are facing.”

Gareth Newham, head of the institute’s crime and justice programme, said the errors in the crime stats were “glaring.”

For the first time since 1994, the crime ratios released by the SAPS can be proved to be statistically incorrect. The effect of this miscalculation is that it downplays the extent to which certain serious violent crime categories are rising, while exaggerating those categories that are decreasing.

The funny thing is, we’re not sure if the Police deliberately tried to fool us, or whether they were just far too incompetent to compile an accurate report. Newham confirms that the errors were born out of the fact that incorrect population numbers were used in every calculation, which resulted in errors being “wrong in every category”.

The errors include:

• Police claim that the number of murders and attempted murders nationally increased by 0.6% and 6.5% respectively. The institute’s calculations showed a 2.6% and 8.7% increase respectively;
• Police said sexual crimes decreased by 0.4%. The institute calculated a 1.5% increase;
• In Western Cape, police claimed murder and attempted murder rose by 0.5% and 26.4% respectively. The institute said murder increased by 10.1% and attempted murder 38.3%;
• Police said house burglaries in the Western Cape dropped by 0.4%, but the institute said they increased by 9.1%; and
• In Gauteng, police stats show attempted murder dropped by 5.5%; the institute says it rose by 1.8%.

Three cheers for Riah Phiyega!

[Source: Times Live]