Can SAPS claim successes against crime?

Johan  Burger,  Senior Researcher, Crime and Justice Programme, ISS Pretoria Office

"The 2010/11 South African Police Service (SAPS) crime statistics show a 2,4% decrease in crime. In real terms this means that the police recorded 50 400 fewer serious crimes in 2010/11 than they did in the previous financial year. This includes decreases in murder (5,3%), attempted murder (11%), aggravated robbery (10,8%) and, for the first time in eight years, also a 10,1% decrease in house robbery".

Such a significant drop in crime incidents is indeed good news. But Johan Burger puts a damper on this and points to poor policing, lack of detection, and that the improved crime statistics are not reflected in prosecution rates. Logically this does not tie up as one would expect that these figures would correlate to more people in jail. 


Then again, there can be less crimes,even though policing is of a poorer quality, but compensated with more police employed during the past year. But let us accept for a moment that the crime is actually coming down but not born out in correlating figures, in particular conviction rates. Let us accept that with poorer standards of policing a reduction in crime statistics may be due to faulty accounting of crime systems, or in fact police officials adjusting figures to indicate better performance even though this is not so. In other words, there could be higher crime rates but the statistics released are indicating the opposite. Can they be trusted?  Lately police manipulation of crime statistics by station commanders have been very much in the news.    

The question is: if crime incidents are reducing this may very well have nothing to do with standards of policing.  A similar situation with the NYPD arose in the late 1980s: crime rates dropped and first claimant for the success was then Police Commissioner Bratton. This because of his "Broken Windows" and "Zero Tolerance" approach to crime prevention. 

This reason did not fly as it was soon pointed out that Bratton`s predecessor, Kelly, was also largely responsible for police restructuring and adding large numbers of police to the service. Clearly, also in Johan`s view, the answer does not lie in proactive policing. A number of other reasons were looked at, for example legalization of abortion was responsible for the dropping crime rates. This argument was ridiculed, amongst others by The Economist. 

Then, a more credible reason is being given. In times of high immigration and social unrest there are bulging crime waves which carry on even after migrant populations have settled down or unrest (1968 movements) dissipated. But the crime wave itself also settles in the longer run.Is it maybe not so that migration to city centres is reversing in view of joblessness? 

Or that migrants over the past years since 1994 are indeed settling down, family life becoming more stable? The township unrest incidents notwithstanding, could we consider the emergence of realistic expectations, like wanting children in school, wanting houses, electricity etcetera, as tempering social life in general? This then despite, if not precisely because of these rising expectations, we get the sporadic unrest incidents? 


This is speculation on my part, probably worth fleshing out, or looking more closely to identify other reasons for falling crime figures: after the large scale movements after 1994 to urban areas, the turmoil before then, may be reasons for lower crime.