TouristTrap

We are South Africans, most born and bred. Many of the ones who post on here have family ties that go back nearly 400 years. We have an extensive network of friends, relatives, acquaintances, work colleagues, etc.. who live ALL OVER the country including the Western Cape. Just to establish the fact that most of us have a huge network of probably thousands that we can draw on personally to guage the situation. We do not need to read it in the papers. We get it from word of mouth.

The vast majority of the crime does NOT get reported in the media. How do we know this? Because our friends, relatives, former work colleagues, acquaintances have been touched and are being touched by violent crime every day, and for the most part, it does not make the papers.

Tegwyn's nephew was shot in an armed robbery where a few people died a few months ago, as an example, and it didn't make the papers. Where he goes, there are dozens of cases. I bet Valente's didn't either. The South African media in fact, tends to under-report crime. Fact.

A friend of Tegwyn's and I, has a grandmother who lives in a very secure up market condo in Cape Town and was attacked recently. I bet that didn't make the papers either.

If you think the SAPS keeps up-to-date stats and will reveal them you are very naive.

6000

That the likelihood of them being murdered or robbed is actually very small. Therefore, they react in an irrational way to the perceived threat.

6000

TT - I take your points on board.

Not every crime gets reported in the press - agreed.
But, as I said, the millions of people that live their daily lives and are not attacked, raped or killed don't get reported either. "Fact."

P.S. Love the "family ties that go back nearly 400 years" comment.
Don't we all have that?!? *grin*

NTS

[QUOTE=6000;5011420]Hi NTS.

It's wrong to compare SA to the UK, but you say Parkview is the same as Notting Hill?


HI, I was trying to think of a similar demographic subhurb in UK, making the point that the crime would be lower in the UK subhurb.

NTS

I dot have the same details of stats but - only for murders and house robberys.

Midrand is one othe top 3 worst areas in North rand. Murders wereup to 19, compared to 9 last year. House robberys were up to 252 from 133 last year.

Edenvale is in the top 3 best in the north rand.

Murders were 3 (down from 4), and house robberys 65 compared to 58.

Out of interest the worst area in north rand is Tembisa. Murders were 131 compared to 116, and house robberys were 272 compared to 184.

TouristTrap

Very funny. Not.

6000

Understood. And you're right - crime is generally worse in SA than in the UK.

Daxk

6000, I'm always reminded when we talk of probability theory of the pedestrian who gets knocked down by a car every 2.5 minutes.
He's asked if it could please stop, he's now tired of it.

Fear is re-inforced by personal knowledge, and taking that everyone knows at least 10 other people if I take the SAPS stats just released, add together House robberies, Hi jackings ,Rape and murder, I see that at least 981,790 people last year either experienced or knew someone who had a real nasty last year.
I take your point that there are 46,million other South Africans who did'nt experience either getting murdered,raped,hi-jacked or having fear in your home.
try telling that to the 98,170 who did.
I can also do the same excercise over the last two SAPS stats reports , add those together and we start getting to some numbers.

Now ,the Police are doing as much as they can, as are the Law courts but I'd like to quote from the SA Law Reform Commissions report (2000) which although out of date, I understand from my legal friends have'nt improved, but disproved
Conviction Rates and Other Outcomes of Crimes Reported in Eight South African Police Areas

http://www.law.wits.ac.za/salc/salc.html

Research Paper 18 ISBN: 0-621-31582-6

Conviction rates are one way of telling us how well the criminal justice system is doing. It is particularly important for victims of violent crime that their attackers are convicted and appropriately punished. A criminal justice system that consistently fails to secure convictions has little credibility and the dangers exist that victims may give up reporting crime and communities may instead resort to extra-legal, vigilante action. From the perspective of a victim of crime, it makes no difference if the system fails them at the stage of the police investigation, the prosecution in court or because of a disjointed interaction between the two. It is therefore important to measure the effectiveness of the criminal justice system as a whole rather than artificially isolate its constituent elements. For this reason, it is useful to measure the numbers of convictions compared with the number of cases reported to the police to get a sense of how effectively the police and prosecution authority work together to hold perpetrators of crime accountable for their actions.

The URL for this page is: http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/...?res_id=101710 "

No amount of social reform works if crime goes unpunished.

Tegwyn

And Daxk, this is where my connections come in. I have family and friends that own armed response companies, that are in essence doing the work the police department are failing at doing. Their frustration is amplified when a criminal is caught and turned over to be processed, to find he/they have been released and back out there continuing their practice. My niece's husband recently sold theirs as he has decided the risks he has had to put both himself and his people through in dealing with this element is not worth it anymore. Very lucrative financially and I'm sure they'll miss that part, but not worth the cost. Working hard to extract them as I speak.