The non-reporting of stock theft is rising constantly since 2011 and the fact that the crimes are not reported, is indicative that the community has lost confidence in the whole criminal justice system.
This is evident from a statement by the National Stock Theft Prevention Forum.
The non-reporting of stock theft has increased from 36.3% in 2011 to 70.7% in 2016.
The statistics were presented to the Portfolio Committee on March 3, 2017, indicating an increase of 2% for the last quarter. There are increases in livestock theft in the Eastern Cape and Free State provinces with unprecedented increases in North West, Mpumalanga, and Gauteng, according to the NVVF statement. The number of cases in the Eastern Cape and the Free State is much higher than in the other three provinces, so the size is much bigger. Moreover, it is a common phenomenon that the provinces with the most cases reported, are the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. The National Stock Theft Prevention Forum feels that research in this regard can no longer be postponed.
Crime statistics cannot be viewed in a vacuum, as there are many other variables that must be taken into account.
When crime and specifically property crime is considered, it is necessary to make a comparison with the Victims of Crime Survey annually released by Statistics SA. The Victims of Crime survey was accidentally released on February 14, 2017. The phenomenon that a large number of property crimes are never reported to the authorities in South Africa is evident in those figures.
Read the original article in Afrikaans on Die Vryburger
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