The Institute of Race Relations (IRR), also noted that police involvement in serious and violent crime has been ongoing. Two earlier editions — released in 2011 and 2015 — found similarly high levels of police involvement in violent crime.
The third edition of the IRR’s Broken Blue Line report was released on Tuesday.
“IRR researchers found over 100 incidents of police involvement in violent and serious crime between 2016 and 2018, with the vast majority of incidents having been recorded in the past twelve months,” the IRR said a statement.
Author of the report, Marius Roodt noted: “There should be no need for such a report as the police should be our primary line of defence against criminal violence. However, in too many cases that line of defence has broken down and the supposed defenders have become perpetrators.
“As long as the police service remains a home to violent criminals it is very unlikely that South Africa will experience a sustained and significant decline in serious and violent crime.”
Also, alarmingly, violent crime was on the rise: a five-year trend for murder and hijacking show a marked increase. This year alone has seen an increase in violent crimes like child murders and farm murders.
An average of 57 people are killed per day in South Africa, an increase from the average of 52 murder deaths a day in 2016/2017.
“This is coupled with a growing lack of trust in the police (and the broader criminal justice system) by ordinary citizens, which further compounds societal problems.”
The IRR has put forward three proposals to help relieve the heavy burden of crime. “First, we suggest that expenses on security, such as electric fences or payments to a security firm, be made tax deductible,” said Roodt.
“Second, communities should be allowed to vote for – or have a significant influence over the appointment of – their station commander, which would make the head of the local police station directly accountable to the local community.
“Third, we propose the development of well-organised and resourced Neighbourhood Watch Schemes that are integrated with private security providers – and, ultimately, with the police – so that local communities can, in effect, take control of their own security.”
Roodt said pressure needed to be “brought to bear on political authorities to take police criminality seriously and deal with it effectively.” But the ANC government has ignored the report.
South Africa’s unemployment rate has meanwhile increased to 27.5 percent at the end of third quarter of 2018, Stats SA announced on Tuesday morning.
The unemployment rate at the end of the second quarter of 2018 was 27.2 percent, according to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey.
The mining industry has shown the biggest quarterly percentage decrease, with 8.9 percent, while on an annual quarter-on-quarter basis, jobs in the construction industry increased by over 10 percent.
The unemployment rate for South Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 is 52.8 percent.
