Pattern to house robberies identified

By Ilhaam Hoosain
08 December 2007

Robbers are hitting more houses and they now prefer to strike when residents are at home according to the Institute for Security Studies.

"It's fairly obvious that this is what's happening," said ISS researcher Johan Burger.

"There seems to be a correlation between the decrease in burglary figures and the increase... in the house robbery figure," he said, but added that this might not be the only reason, according to Sapa

The police announced on Thursday that house robbery went up seven percent, business robbery 29.3 percent, and truck hijacking 53.3 percent in the six months from April to September.

Burglars in the past would watch a house to establish residents' patterns, then break-in while the people were out and they could expect no resistance, said Burger.

The availability of firearms in the crime market in the past couple of years had "completely changed the face of crime".

He said the recent seven percent increase in house robberies were over and above a 25 percent increase last year.

He expected the police and criminal justice system to really focus on ways of fighting house robberies.

"At the moment, it's the one crime... that causes the most fear.

Burger said the country's biggest headache in the past few years was still the level of violence in crime.

“The police had received its preliminary report, but that the final report would be presented to the government only in January 2009,” says Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula on Thursday.

The police statistics show:
• decrease in murder by 6.6 %
• rape 3.6 %
• attempted murder 7.6 %
• assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm 2.8 %
• common assault 5.1 %
• aggravated robbery 9.7 %
• common robbery 12.3 %