Crime CAN be beaten

Sometimes we look at our country and think the problems are insurmountable. They are not. I don't believe that. The short answer to our problems is quite simple really: the ANC must be removed.

I give you this scenario: Imagine a place where the murder rate is not 40 per 100 000 people (like ours) but 76 per 100 000 people. Then imagine too that the government is utterly corrupt with virtually every politician and cop from the ground up in the pocket of organised crime. Sound familiar? Then, for good measure, throw in a civil war.

That country was Colombia but that scenario is no longer. Today, Colombia is one of the safest countries on earth. What changed? The people replaced the government. They elected a tremendous leader called Álvaro Uribe as President.

It is a success story you'd think our baboons would want to emulate. Nothing doing. Read below about a man who was part of that country's war on crime telling us how they did it. One strategy was to release crime stats every month. Our mugs say every TWO years...

Publishing regular monthly crime statistics is a crucial part of reducing crime levels, says the man responsible for achieving a dramatic drop in the murder rate in Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

"The sharing of information is critical, even if that information hurts you," Professor Antanas Mockus, who served two terms as mayor of what was once one of the world's most violent cities, told an audience in Cape Town.

His observation comes a day after Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa was reported as saying crime statistics in South Africa should only be released every two years.

Mockus was mayor of Bogota from 1995 to 1997, and again from 2001 to 2003. At the start of his first term of office, the capital's murder rate was 76 per 100 000 people. By the end of his second term, this had plummeted to 22 per 100 000. (Fact: the only thing keeping this figure high is the ongoing civil war now restricted to the mountains away from the main towns and cities - Ed.)

Speaking at the Centre for the Book, he said the murder rate in Colombia generally, and in Bogota in particular, soared from about 1976 onwards, with a rapid rise in drug-related killings and high rates of corruption.

What turned the tide was authorities focusing on a unique combination of legal, moral and social actions, and involving the citizens of his city.

"You have to unify the data on homicides and publish them monthly... you have to publicly ventilate things" he said.

Key risk factors
Another crucial strategy was a focus on key risk factors such as firearms, alcohol and family violence.

Among measures adopted by Mockus at the time in his quest to improve the city he ran was the replacement of corrupt traffic policemen with mimes, who spent their days making fun of traffic offenders, based on his theory that Colombians were more afraid of being ridiculed than fined.

It worked. Traffic fatalities in the city dropped by half.

Mockus once reportedly donned a colourful outfit and took to the Bogota streets as a caped "Supercitizen".

Speaking to Sapa after his address, Mockus said the murder rate in Colombia, and in Bogota, had now dropped to levels below that of South Africa.

"According to the latest figures, South Africa has more violent crime than Colombia," he said.