Sign up with GoogleThe Western Cape, already boasting some success in bringing down crime, hopes to better the crime-busting feats of New York mayor Rudi Giuliani.
A five-year 40% drop in crime by 2008 "is a target that can be achievable", provincial police commissioner Mzandile Petros said in Cape Town on Tuesday.
His remarks at a Business Against Crime breakfast came in the wake of last month's release of statistics showing crime in the province dropped 17% in the past financial year.
He said that if one looked at the figures over three years, the drop was in fact 23%.
"We will always be told that New York reduced crime by 40%," he said.
"What we fail to understand, is that this should be an accumulative reduction in terms of a period of time."
In the next financial year, the Western Cape should better the 23% figure already achieved.
"The 40% is the 40% that was the target achieved by Giuliani in New York. And I don't want to confine myself. Maybe we come up with 45% at the end of the five years; we don't know," Petros said.
"But as we're looking at the scoreboard now, the future looks bright."
Petros took to task people -- including Democratic Alliance safety and security spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard -- who compared South Africa unfavourably with other countries when it came to crime.
He said he had visited Bogota in drug-war ridden Colombia, where on every street corner there was a soldier "with a big gun".
While he talked about arrests, Bogota police talked about their body count of criminals.
"When people want to make comments they must research," Petros said. – Sapa
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/&articleid=286314
A five-year 40% drop in crime by 2008 "is a target that can be achievable", provincial police commissioner Mzandile Petros said in Cape Town on Tuesday.
His remarks at a Business Against Crime breakfast came in the wake of last month's release of statistics showing crime in the province dropped 17% in the past financial year.
He said that if one looked at the figures over three years, the drop was in fact 23%.
"We will always be told that New York reduced crime by 40%," he said.
"What we fail to understand, is that this should be an accumulative reduction in terms of a period of time."
In the next financial year, the Western Cape should better the 23% figure already achieved.
"The 40% is the 40% that was the target achieved by Giuliani in New York. And I don't want to confine myself. Maybe we come up with 45% at the end of the five years; we don't know," Petros said.
"But as we're looking at the scoreboard now, the future looks bright."
Petros took to task people -- including Democratic Alliance safety and security spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard -- who compared South Africa unfavourably with other countries when it came to crime.
He said he had visited Bogota in drug-war ridden Colombia, where on every street corner there was a soldier "with a big gun".
While he talked about arrests, Bogota police talked about their body count of criminals.
"When people want to make comments they must research," Petros said. – Sapa
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/&articleid=286314
