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665 TUESDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2008
666
Information Analysis Centre
(CIAC), now the Crime Intelligence
Office (CIO), would be so
busy responding to these enquiries
that they would be unable to focus
on their real objective, namely to
do an operational analysis of
crime information (including
crime statistics). Over the past
decade, crime statistics have become
more politicised than ever
and the public have become more
fixated on crime statistics. If crime
statistics were issued at shorter
intervals at station level, the demand
for releasing these statistics
would be even higher than in the
late 1990s.
(3.3)The official statistics on the Business
Intelligence System and GIS
that the CIO analysed at station
level have not yet been released.
However, interim statistics are
available online hourly. There
might be differences, albeit small,
between these statistics and the
official Crime Management Information
System (CMIS) figures
contained in reports of the SAPS’s
reports. These reports are also
issued at station level on the Service’s
website, www.saps.gov.za.
The BI and GIS are linked to the
Crime Administration System
(CAS) which is updated as soon as
new information is received. Once
a month (on the 15th day of each
month) statistics on the operational
systems are downloaded
onto the CMI. In the past, the
crime statistics of the SAPS were
released by the Minister for Safety
and Security annually, but are now
— since 2007 — released every
six months. These statistics are
also available on the website of
the SAPS.
If non-validated operational crime
statistics were to be provided to
the public at station level and the
statistics were then later checked,
verified and released on the website,
it could lead to minor/insignificant
differences being blown
out of all proportion. This happened
regularly in the media in the
late 1990s.
A FEW EXAMPLES OF AVERAGE MONTHLY N=VALUES PER CRIME PER
STATION
Type of crime
Number one
station
Number ten
station
Murder Nyanga (WC) Plessislaer
(KZN)
Aggravated
robbery
Number twenty
station
Duncanvillage
(EC)
50% station 80% station
Vulindlela
(EC)
24 10 8 3 1
Durban
Central (KZN)
Pinetown
(KZN)
Taung (NW) 738 other
stations with
fewer murders
a month than
Taung
Temba (NW) Parkview (GP) Seshego (LIM) 892 other
stations with
fewer aggravated
robberies
a month than
Seshego
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