SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila told Popcru’s 10th national congress in Durban that the crime crisis being faced by the country is catastrophic.
He said when the union held its crime Indaba in August, there was a high crime rate crisis and this crisis has not been resolved but is raging on.
“To summarise some worrying factors, during the second quarter of this year, contact crimes increased to approximately 150 000.
“By category of cases, sexual offences were over 11 000, rape cases were over 9 000 and attempted murder was approximately 6 000.”
Mapaila said criminal and mafia networks have gained control in the worst affected and crime-infested areas.
“In fact, we have become a country in which there are records of criminals storming a police station to commit robbery, including theft of evidence and police weapons and ammunition.
“Drug-dealing syndicates are destroying both the present and the future of mostly a rising number of our youth, followed by people of other age categories.
This used to be concentrated in cities, but it has now spread to other parts of the country, including rural towns and villages,” Mapaila said.
He warned that catastrophic crime was affecting the psyche of citizens.
“Those who have money are leaving for other areas. Exorbitant private security establishments, rather than public safety and security institutions like SAPS, are more in charge and this has far-reaching national security implications.”
Mapaila said there has been an emergence of and growth in what could be characterised as “private municipalities, covering private estates”.
He said in class terms, this capitalist market driven trend focuses on the middle strata and the well-off as the source of profits.
“They have the money to pay, unlike the excluded, poorly paid, exploited working-class people who cannot afford.”
He said unless crime is dealt with, the country was unlikely to build inclusive and integrated human settlements.
Mapaila said household and corporate expenditure on private security has risen in the face of crime.
The Mercury