A shocking new report by Christian Action Network presents evidence that South Africa's murder statistics are even worse than official statistics have so far admitted.

For every 1000 crimes committed in South Africa, only 430 criminals are arrested. Of these, only 77 are convicted and barely 8 of these are sentenced to two or more years of imprisonment. It is also calculated that South African convicts have a 94% recidivism rate (that is, 94% of all persons released after serving a sentence immediately become involved in crime again).

Serious Under Reporting
The 22-page Christian Action Network Murder in South Africa Report by Robert McCafferty is based on original source documents, government archives, the Central Statistics Service, Interpol, the South African Medical Research Council statistics, and many other sources. The Report casts serious doubt on the South African government's claim that the murder rate has been decreasing.

Victims' surveys have consistently uncovered between 60% and 70% more crime than reported by official sources. Upwards of 50% of crime in many serious categories goes unreported.

Statistical Discrepancies
While police crime statistics show that there were 21 683 murders in the year 2000, the Medical Research Council puts the figure at 32 482.

Interpol claims even higher numbers of murders in South Africa - up to 54 298 in one year. Interpol's figures are approximately double the numbers of "murders known to the police" in South Africa. According to Interpol, South Africa has the highest recorded per capita murder rate, second only to Colombia.

Failure of Criminal Justice System
Only half of all murder cases are sent to court, and only 4007 of these resulted in a guilty verdict.

Alcohol Abuse
Alcohol abuse is also shown to go hand in hand with South Africa's culture of violence: "according to the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System, 56% of homicide victims sampled for blood alcohol levels tested positive."

The Most Murderous Societies
The Nedcore Project has concluded that: "South Africa and Southern Africa are probably the most murderous societies on earth, even with the probable under reporting." The Nedcore Project claims the results of their surveys "underscore the fact that crime has become South Africa's pre-eminent sociological problem. It now eclipses even unemployment in concerns of all South Africans."

Worse Than War
The UCA Report on Murder in South Africa reveals that according to the official statistics, in the 44 years from 1950 to 1993, there was an average of 7036 murders per year. This covered the turbulent strife of the apartheid years of warfare, conflict, terrorism, riots and repression.

However, in the first eight years (of peace) of the new democratic dispensation, under the ANC, an average of 24 206 murders were committed each year - officially!. However, if the Interpol statistics are accepted, then the murder rate in South Africa during the ANC years has averaged 47 882 per year.

When The Death Penalty Deterrent Is Removed
The report notes that the sharp exponential increase of violent crime, particularly murder, in South Africa, also coincides with the suspension of the death penalty in 1989 and its abolition in 1996.

Disarming The Potential Victims
With the massive increase in organised crime, and violent crime in South Africa, it is all the more incomprehensible that the government should be removing security barriers from crime afflicted suburbs and turning their attention towards disarming the potential victims through more rigid firearms control laws, rather than re-instating the death penalty as a deterrent for violent crime.

It is also an undeniable fact that criminals prefer unarmed victims.

"When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." Ecclesiastes 8:11

The full report, Murder in South Africa: A Comparison of Past and Present by Robert McCafferty, is available from Christian Action Network.

Peter Hammond

http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles_ca/2003-3-MURDER_IN.htm