Crime information - Residential Robberies

Dr. Rudolph Zinn of the School of Criminal Justice at UNISA did Intensive research on residential robberies and attacks, and interviewed many arrested and convicted robbers. Some of his findings are alarming, some are surprising - but they are all well worth taking note of. Then make your own conclusion and beef up your ideas and security where necessary.

a.. During the past year, house robberies increased by 13,5%.

b.. Of the almost 15 000 residential robberies committed in 2008, half (50%)took place in Gauteng.

c.. The average age of a house robber is between 19 and 26 years.

d.. An average of 30% of all house robbers have either committed murder, or won't hesitate to commit murder.

e.. Only 17% of house robbers are foreigners.

f.. Of all arrested robbers, 90% had no matric or were unemployed. The 10% who had been employed, gave up their jobs when

confirming how much they could "earn" from a robbery.

g.. Most victims or targets are affluent persons who openly display their wealth, e.g. expensive cars, jewellery, up market homes.

h.. Much intelligence is gathered about the target home and its residents by means of inside information supplied by domestic workers.

i.. 80% of residential robberies are committed with the help of information from domestic workers, gardeners and former employees.

j.. The robbers will monitor the home and movements for as long as is needed to formulate a plan of attack - sometimes up to two weeks.

k.. All gangs research and monitor the response times of armed response companies.

l.. Most attacks occur between 19:00 and midnight as people are relaxed, busy cooking or watching TV,& security systems and

beams are not activated. Robberies continue until 04:00 in the morning.

m.. The biggest deterrent confirmed by robbers themselves, are small dogs that are kept inside the home.

n.. Alarm systems and armed reaction services are not considered a deterrent. Electric fences, closed-circuit TV (CCTV) and

detection beams do, however, deter robbers.

o.. An average of R5 000 is stolen during each robbery.

p.. Surprisingly, victims of house robberies are only seriously injured in 2% of all incidents.

q.. Only 35% of robbers stole for basic needs (hunger, poverty), while 65% enjoyed the money and spent it on clothes, cars, etc.

r.. The average robber commits 103 robberies over seven years before being caught.

s.. A staggering 97% of all robbers are armed and on average there are four members in an armed robbery gang.

t.. Most attackers' homes or bases are a 10 to 30 minute drive from the target address.

u.. Women are more often tortured or hurt during house robberies.

v.. The conviction rate for house robberies in South Africa is only 7.67%. In the USA it is 53%.

While these statistics and facts may be disturbing, even alarming, we trusts that it may sharpen the vigilance of each member. If you have

safety measures at your home, ensure that they are in place. Test your security equipment regularly... never be complacent and think that it

only happens to other people.

It is in your own best interest rather to be safe than sorry!

Consumers & the Competition Board

Tiger Brands were found guilty of price fixing and got a hefty fine. So did Sasol not so long ago. Now Sasol is once again in trouble and will probably have to pay another fine. Why is this money going to government? They actually made money out of this as well through a higher sales tax that the consumer had to pay all those years. What happens to that money at the end of the day - part of the Zimbabwe bail-out money perhaps?

This money should go into an independently administered account and should be applied in projects to uplift the poor communities who suffered the most out of these price fixing schemes. I wonder what would happen if these guys were ordered by the competitions board to repay the consumer? It will probably cost them more than the fine imposed on them.

And it's not only Tiger Brands and Sasol. The whole industry is rotten. Cashbuild claimed that their building material suppliers increased there prices by the same margin at the same time. Murray and Roberts and Aveng has agreed on pricing on their pre-cast concrete products. And the consumer just suffers?

This is why there are structures and organisations in place, to protect the consumer.

Yet, it carries on. Food pricing has not come down but instead keep on going up. Where will it all end?

Sliding fast

Some time ago government was warned that the country will soon be without sufficient electricity. We're there now.

It's no use going into ifs or buts, what's done is done and we have to deal with this issue now - at major expense.
Hats off to Mbweni who is committed to keeping the inflation rate down. Problem is that the consumer price index keeps on growing due to factors beyond our control and it seems that pushing up interest rates is the only thing the Reserve Bank knows. Which of course hurts the consumer even more.
Some R60 Billion of our tax money was allocated to Eskom to provide the infrastructure for current and future electricity demand. Plus Trevor added a 14% increase in electricity tariffs to help make the government stuff-up go away quicker.

This is a new construction next to Beyers Naude Drive in Johannesburg. It is not occupied and construction has not been completed.

Yet at night time most of the lights are on. So much for saving power from the First National Bank / Wesbank contractors. Any commitment from this major bank to this country?

Now Eskom wants a 52% increase in their rates.

Standby generators cost more to run due to increased fuel prices. Coal pricing has gone through the roof for which Eskom has to pay more. This is the effect that short supply on power has on mines - just look at the gold price.
Industry cannot perform. Volkswagen closed their factory and are looking at resuming only once it becomes viable to do so. Of course some industries are laying off people. We don't have power, we cannot produce. And with expenses going up manufacturers who export suffer even more.
You'd think with a devalued Rand they'll make money, but supply contracts suffer and the economy is getting a bad reputation for failing to deliver.

It's a mess. What gets me the most is that it was preventable. And what's to come will be even worse.
People will become poorer. Expenses will become too expensive to maintain. Accounts will fall in arrears, court judgements will increase, houses will be repossessed and markets will tumble. Shops will close down and jobs will be lost. Crime will increase from smuggling to muggings to burglaries to killings. Desperate people will turn to whatever brings bread to the table. Even the most positive outlook will diminish.
The soccer tournament in 2010 will go ahead amidst a hungry nation.

Sad, ain't it?

What can we do? How much more electricity can I save? I have my fridge running whilst not at home, that's it. At night the most essentials are using power for only as long as it's absolutely necessary. If solar panels weren't so expensive I would've had those already.
Yet, you travel through any metropolitan area and you see the amount of lights that are on. You travel to townships and you can't help but notice the amount of illegally connected power cables. Can someone in government please do something about this? Are they really interested?

The only solution I can see is to take away all the benefits our government officials are enjoying, half their salaries and bring them down to the average citizens' lifestyle and see how they cope.

Maybe after three months they'll re-think certain decisions and spend more time on better planning and considering all options.
Where are our leaders? Why so quiet up there?

Flower Season

As with every year, since the beginning of Gods creation, this ultimate in natural colour creation has been with us. It is awesome to see and very boring for young persons (them kiddies that wanna play PC games all the time and sit on MixIt)
There's little or close to no cellphone reception. There's not much in activities except for driving and trying to spot game amongst millions of flowers.

Traveling on the R27 towards Velddrif this national park is about 100km's from Cape Town. It's also the home of the Geelbek restaurant which serves the best Ostrich burgers I've ever tasted. The building is a national monument and contains some historical information about the area as well as a well stocked curious shop.
Located just outside Langebaan on the edges of the "lagoon" flowers are the main attraction. From August every year the army base located at the opposite tip opens their gates for the yearly "pilgrimage" of visitors eager to get a glimpse of the flowers, the game and maybe a whale or two. The area is a popular whale watching spot with whales sometimes entering the lagoon itself.
Entry fee is reasonable at R25.00 a head (for locals) and most people pack a picnic basket or the whole braai for a day out.
The best time would be from end of August to beginning September. They disappear just as quick as they appear.

Strandloper

Been here before. An open air seaside seafood eating spot. One of the guys working here gave me his account of the work they do there -
The girls don't dress properly, all you get to eat is fresh fish and you work with your barefeet in the sand - life is tough, but it's a job.

Strandloper is well-known for it's 11 course meal, mainly fish and home-made bread and jams. Then of course there's Jakes, the West Coast singer who keeps visitors / patrons entertained with typical traditional Cape songs and some of the better known Afrikaans pop songs.

The seagulls are established patrons, no strikes, no supervision, no moaning about service and diligent in eating everything and anything dished up for them. I'm still not sure if they work there or not?
You pay per head and sit on benches under old fishnets in the sand. There's no electricity and all the food is prepared on site on open fires. From smoked angelfish to lobster. The bar next door provides the drinks but it's recommended you take your own drinks.

For an experience that you'll never forget, book your place next time you're in Langebaan or the surrounding area.

Background

I've been on the internet with my web pages since the mid 1990s. First I started off with a wallpaper site (http://myqts.tripod.com) which expanded quite rapidly in the first two years. I had to find more space and at the time the guys offering free space and bandwidth, limited users to something like 5Megs. Thus we jumped to Angelfire with part of the MYQTS site published there.

Eventually my first publication on GPSA was with Tripod (http://gpsa.tripod.com). With a mate of mine doing very well with a (now) major internet player in South Africa, I registered and moved my website to CMC Networks. It's been there ever since.

GPSA started off as an outlet for my frustrations getting used to being under black rule since 1994. Not only the change of direction politically, but the assumption by white South Africans that they can now do as the black man did all those years under apartheid.
If you don't understand what I mean by that it will be very difficult to explain. What is important to know about South Africa is the immense diversity of cultures, each with their own unique customs.
What we see as barbaric (mostly due to different values), is the black mans culture. Like slaughtering a cow in celebration of whatever. What's happening now is that these customs are practiced amongst old white neighbourhoods. Obviously quite a shock to our systems.

Back on the farm where I spent a lot of my childhood years we used to first shoot the animal (preferably in the head for a quick and easy death) before slaughter. The black man custom is to kill it by panga - an agonising death for sure.
The white man does not know enough of the black man custom. From there the fear of the 'unknown'. But that's not it. Not totally.

The Dutch landed in the Cape and negotiated and traded with the local Bushman (Khoi). All of the various tribes in Africa were 'roamers' and thus no black men existed as far as the settlers were concerned until they expanded to the Fishriver where they bump into the Xhosa. The Xhosa initially traded with the settlers until they were forced to either work for the settlers or move further north.
Working for the Boer entitled them to certain priveleges on the condition that they abide by the white mans laws. They mostly did and the law was certainly on their side, even though they had no voting rights.
The fact that the white man arrived here and immediately started putting structures in place for towns and law, and then met up with a gypsey type roamer tribe(s) immediately put the black man at a disadvantage. They lived in huts constructed of straw and clay, they moved around by foot and used spears to hunt. They did not know God - which played a major role with the Dutch and later the British.

So obviously an advanced civilisation settled on the Southern tip of Africa. Numerous historic documents show that north of the Pietersburg, there were no indigenous people. Could it be that the trekkers just never saw them? The first civilisation encountered were at the foot of the Soutpansberge, an extensive mountain range in the far north of South Africa. They are still there today. To the east some more tribes were encountered such as the Phedi with the Sotho a bit more south (between Pretoria and Pietersburg).

That was a quick history lesson.

A corrupt government saw the white man (in general) starting to behave like our black government officials. No regard for the law nor for their neighbours. General law started breaking down. People did as they pleased and got off with bribes (most of the time). With the integration of previous freedom fighters into every possible government service, whether qualified or not saw the collapse of government institutions from which the ANC government is still trying to recover fifteen years later.
No-one ever expected a terrorist organisation like the ANC to be capable of governing a country, but they did. To the black man this was victory and come what may, they will rule (even though they cannot govern). In their initiation years the previous white government held their hands, making a lot of money out of it. Ex-government officials contracted their services out to an incapable ANC government to show them the ropes. Once these guys were confident enough to shrug off the white man, or purely because of hating the white race they took over and did as they pleased.

From a culture of a headman in charge of a kraal, they now had a free hand with little respect of the laws laid down by their own comrades. It was a free for all. Shaka (king of the Zulu nation) was probably far more advanced in his leadership than all the other tribes put together in Africa. The Zulu was by far the strongest nation the trekkers encountered in the 1700s. Devious and unforgiving, easy to retract on their promises as Piet Retief found out. He and his party of Boers were killed by Shaka after an agreement on land negotiations went south. Shaka changed his mind after he realised that the Boer cannot be messed with. He was scared of the might of the white man and was eventually killed for his cowardice.

The black man thinks he owes nothing to the white man. In fact, it's the white man who owes everything. The possessions, the houses, the streets, the towns, the businesses, the infrastructure and the economy. They've taken most and they're still taking. Not only material but life as well. Through brutal slaughtering to simple stabbings, they take. And they keep asking for more.
As with Zimbabwe our economy is slowly dying. There is a bright light every now and again but the pride of being South African is dying within the white community. The infrastructure we handed to the new 'owners' were immense and it takes time to destroy, even for the black man.

Personally I'm hoping for a turn around. I am fortunate in that I've dealt with some decent like-minded black people. We can work together but for the majority who are still trapped in a mindset of ignorance and their false belief of what freedom means.

Is this what they've done with their freedom? Is this what freedom means to them? If that's the case, God help us all.

GPSA The "new" South Africa..

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