Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The rising number of violent crimes across South Africa; murder and rape in reference, highlight the growing need for the South African Police Service (SAPS), to improve on management of these selected crimes. The statistics for 2017/18 show that murder has increased to 20,336 murders. This rate increased from 34.1 per 100,000 people to 35.8, in 2017/18, an average of fifty-six people were murdered every day, this crime is considered to be the most reliable crime statistic, because most murders can be independently verified. Whereas, rape recorded 40,035 rapes in 2017/18, an increase from 39,828 in 2016/17. An average of 110 rapes were recorded by the SAPS each day. The rape rate decreased from 71.3 per 100,000 people to 70.5 in 2017/18. however, negative notion suggests that rape statistics recorded by the police cannot be taken as an accurate measure of either the extent or trend of this crime. The authors used a non-empirical research design (systematic review) to find new knowledge on the topic for the past ten financial years (2008-2018). The findings showed that the contributory factors to violent crimes in South Africa are vast, resulting from ways of solving problems; subculture of violence, learning of violent and aggressive behaviour, among others and the local SAPS inadequately respond to murder and rape. The authors recommend that in order to effectively respond to murder and rape challenges; better training of SAPS personnel is sought, adequate intelligence to predict crimes is required, more resources, coupled with contingency plans and criminological analysis.