Police Minister Bheki Cele says the abuse of alcohol – which leads to serious crimes like murder and rape – is very concerning.
Cele led a delegation who presented crime statistics for the period 1 April to 30 June 2023 to Parliament.
Murders at just over 6 200 cases, have shown a decrease of 196 cases, compared to the same period last year.
According to police, 3 262 cases of assault GBH, 66 of rape, 276 of attempted murders and 243 murders occurred at premises selling alcohol.
Cele says the abuse of alcohol should be looked into.
“The issue of alcohol in country, we need to look at it. When there was a semi looting, little looting, during taxi strike they broke into Tops, rather than other places – which tells you South Africans and alcohol is an area that we have to look and work together on those,” adds Cele.
Police killings
The increase in police killings could be as a result of criminals stealing officer’s firearms and efforts to stall cases they are working on.
This is according to Hawks boss, Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya.
Police killings have nearly doubled compared to the same period last year, from 18 to 31.
Lebeya explains why officers are becoming targets.
“There are areas [where] weapons targeted, disputes at liquor outlets, those [officers] targeted because of nature of [their] work. Also few areas, where relationship may be triggering [the] killing of some … also limited cases of spousal encashment,” explains Lebeya.
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