Pretoria – The justice system should be harsher towards convicted criminals, so say experts as they bemoaned the murder rate in the first quarter - with over 6424 people murdered between April and June.
Police Minister Bheki Cele delivered the country's crime statistics on Friday, expressing concern at the the increasing murder rate.
Cele said the 6424 murders were a sharp increase. Over 664 more people murdered compared to the same period in 2021.
The stats also indicated that sexual violence, which includes rape, sexual assault, attempted sexual offences and contact sexual offences, had decreased.
“Between April and June this year, 286 rapists were convicted through investigative work done by the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences unit. Out of the 286 rape convictions, 46 of the rapists were sentenced to life behind bars,” Cele said.
Kholofelo Rakubu, a professor in the department of safety and security management at the Tshwane University of Technology said the number of convictions was concerning as it was low compared to the reported cases.
“Our courts need to be more harsh, because we need general deterrence. The minute an offender in the community hears that if they are convicted of rape and will still be able to come back… it sends a wrong message to offenders, because they know they can always come back,” she said speaking to eNCA.
She added that for courts to get successful convictions, they also needed assistance from relevant structures, especially in victim assistance and support.
“The minute communities re-victimise victims, they are likely not to even provide evidence or proceed with the matter. This also sends wrong information that if you open a case, you might be killed by the offender because there’s a lot of opportunity for the offender to roam around communities to re-victimise.”
Rakubu said more convictions sent out a positive message to the public and also tapped into the integrity of the justice system.
“We should be reviewing all these challenges, if we need more resources as the justice system, that should be looked into. There should be budgeting and training if there’s incapacitation.”
On the number of committed murders, Rakubu said the statistics were not shocking because it was known that the country was plagued by violence.
“We talk violence every day and these statistics talk to our community structures, because all these crimes are committed within our communities. Most offenders are known to victims… As communities, to what extent do we assist the justice system in identifying root causes of violence?
“Communities need to form safety plans and link them to other relevant stakeholders for SAPS to effectively deal with those crimes. As community members we also need to assist,” Rakubu added.
IOL