Collecting and collating crime statistics should remain the responsibility of police(SABC)
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The Institute for Security Studies says collecting and collating crime statistics should remain the responsibility of police. Senior researcher, Johan Burger was responding to a call by DA spokesperson on Police, Dianne Kohler-Barnard that an independent body be created to take over the responsibility of collecting crime statistics.
Burger says if such a body is established it should rather be responsible for the verification of statistics. "The police should continue with the responsibility to collate the crime statistics, surely these crime statistics are reported to the police and they have the machinery in place to do this. But because of the suspicions that exist about police crime stats, there needs to be an independent body to assist with police crime stats verification," Burger added.
The Ministry of Police welcomes criticism and suggestions
The Ministry of Police says while it welcomes criticism and suggestions on how to improve on its crime reporting, crime statistics should not be used as a political toy to discredit them.
"As Ministry of Police, we released the crime stats to the nation. What we are doing is we are listening to feedback from the people who are interested in helping government fight crime. We do so because we did not say it’s the alpha and the omega, we want constructive criticism, we want improvement we want suggestions but those who seem to politick crime stats will not succeed," concluded Ministerial spokesperson Zweli Mnisi.
