KNYSNA | BITOU NEWS - Knysna has managed to work itself off most of Police Minister Bheki Cele's naughty lists in terms of crime, after a concerning second quarter last year.

This was revealed when Cele released the 2022/23 second-quarter crime statistics last week, which included lists of "top 30" police stations for various crimes. 

Last year Knysna appeared on five of these top lists, including sexual assault, attempted sexual offences, contact sexual crimes, burglary of residential premises and abductions. 

This year Knysna only appears on one of these lists and that is for arson. Knysna ended up in 26th spot with five reported cases compared with last year's three. This is a 66,7% increase.

Another improvement on Knysna's crime front is that while most contact crimes against people like murder, robbery and assault showed increases, the town's sexual offence crimes were down by 37,5% from 40 incidents last year to 25 now. 

Rape is down by 22,7% from 22 incidents to 17 and sexual assault down by 44,4% from nine cases to five. Property-related crimes also showed a decrease across all categories.

There are however other serious crimes that are cause for concern. Murder was up by 25% - from four reported incidents to five - attempted murder increased by 60% from five cases to eight and assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm increased by 14,4% from 97 cases to 111. 

Common assault also saw a spike of 10,2% from 127 reported incidents to 140, common robbery was up 14,3% from 21 cases to 24 and robbery with aggravated circumstances increased by 6,3% from 32 to 34 incidents.

Crime in Plettenberg Bay

In Plettenberg Bay the picture was somewhat different with most contact crimes against people seeing a decrease. Murder and sexual offences were however up.

Attempted murder decreased 100% with no reported cases. Last year there were two incidents. 

Assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm was down 2,9% from 34 to 32 cases, common assault decreased by 32,7% from 55 to 37 reported incidents and robbery with aggravated circumstances by 50% from eight to four cases.

While the actual reported incidents for murder was low, the percentage increase was 200% higher than the same period last year. Last year there was only one reported case, while this year there were three. 

Sexual offences also showed an increase of 16,7% with seven cases compared to last year's six. Rape was also up by 33,3% from three incidents to four. Most property-related crimes in Plett also increased.

Crime in Kwanokuthula

In Kwanokuthula there was an increase in most crimes across the board. Murder was two counts higher from last year's zero incidents and sexual offences was up 125% from eight reported cases to 18 this year. 

Common robbery and robbery with aggravating circumstances were both up 100% from two incidents to four and five to 10 respectively. Rape incidents were up 200% from five to 15 cases and sexual assault up 50% from two to three reported incidents.

Nationally, there was an increase in serious crimes across the board. The most alarming statistic was the record number of assault cases reported to the police in five years. Cele reported that 7 004 people were killed by other persons in the country.

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