Cape Town Central police station took the top spot in two categories in the latest crime statistics.
It topped the lists as the station with the most reported theft out of motor vehicles and property-related crimes.
It also had a 1.7% increase in contact crimes.
Police Minister Bheki Cele released the latest stats on Tuesday September 11. Tracking the period from April 1 last year to March this year, they paint a grim picture of crime in South Africa, with 20 336 murders reported – a 6% hike in the country’s murder rate.
By far the biggest contact-crime increase at Cape Town Central SAPS was for rape.Â
Contact crimes include murder, attempted murder, assault, robbery, sexual assault and rape.Â
There was a 33.3% increase in rape (28 cases), a 10.6% increase in sexual assault (52 cases), a 5.3% increase for common assault (571 cases), a 3.1% increase for common robbery (1 179 cases) and a 0.8% increase for robbery with aggravating circumstances (662 cases).
Cape Town Central was also the station with the second highest number of common robberies in the country (1 179), which is 31.% more than last year.
Theft was the most prevalent crime in the CBD. There was 5 067 cases of theft reported, 7.8% down from last year.Â
Theft out of a motor-vehicles was a close second with a nearly 5% increase (3 956 cases).Â
This was the highest number of cases in this category in the country and is more than double compared to the station with the second highest number (Stellenbosch 1 840).
These theft stats pushed up the station’s average for property-related crime, giving it a 1.8% increase, with 5083 cases reported overall.
Other property-related crime increases include a 9.8% increase in burglaries at non-residential premises (291 cases) and a 1.8% increase in theft of motor vehicles and motorcycles (278 cases).Â
The only theft category that declined was residential burglaries. It had an 18.7% decline, with 558 cases compared to 686 cases last year.
The station had a 3.3% decrease in community-reported serious crimes, but it still had the most reported crimes in this category – which encompasses all reported-crime categories – in the country (15 422).
Table Bay Harbour’s crime statistics were relatively low. It’s only significant increase was in commercial crime, where it had a 10% increase to 106 cases.
Theft and shoplifting were the station’s most prevalent crimes with 573 and 298 cases reported respectively. However, both of these categories showed a decline of 11.8% and 12.9% respectively.