Harare, Byo, Midlands’ country’s crime hotbeds

Harare, (New Ziana) – Harare, Bulawayo and the Midlands provinces are the country’s crime hotbeds, statistics from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) show.

Presenting the 2024 first quarter crime statistics, ZimStat acting director general, Aluwisio Mukavhi said people living in Harare, Bulawayo and Midlands provinces are more vulnerable to becoming victims of crime with the crime rate in Harare standing at 2 877.5 per 100 000 people against the national average of 1 460.6 per 100 000 people.
The statistics show the safer provinces as Manicaland with the lowest crime rate followed by Mashonaland West and Matabeleland North in that order.

Mukavhi said the police recorded 221 704 offences for the three months up to March 2024, a slight uptick on last year’s quarter which had 221 596 recorded crimes.
This places the national crime rate at 1 460.6 crimes per 100 000 people up from 1 459.9 per 100 000 observed in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The crime rate for offences committed against public order and state security was 578.7 per 100 000 population, a decline from 587.9 per 100 000 recorded in the fourth quarter of 2023.

“Of the 221 704 cases recorded in the first quarter of 2024, crimes against public safety and state security were the most common with 87 834 cases recorded.

The second most common type of crime recorded was acts against property only, with 53 975 cases. Acts leading to harm or intending to cause harm to the person were 41 143. The total number of persons charged by the police for all offences was 164 461, of which 88 per cent were male. The rate for charged persons for all offences increased to 1 083.5 per 100 000 people from 1 068.7 in the previous quarter,” he said.

The rate for charged males for all offences was 1 975.9 persons per 100 000 males, while it was 259 for females.

There were 266 cases of intentional homicide recorded in the first quarter of 2024, reflecting a rate of 1.8 offences per 100 000 population. Assaults and threats category was the most frequent ‘Act causing harm or intending to cause harm to the person’.

The rate for assaults and threats stood at 194.7 per 100 000 population. There were 38 042 cases of theft recorded in the first quarter indicating a rate of 250.6 per 100 000 population. There were 2 177 cases of unlawful acts involving controlled drugs or precursors indicating a rate 14.3 per 100 000 population.

There were 3 455 cases of fraud and 83 cases of corruption recorded indicating crime rates of 22.8 and 0.5 per 100,000 population, respectively.

The number of offences recorded under ‘Other acts against public order, authority and provisions of the State’ was 6 046, translating to a crime rate of 39.8 per 100 000 population.

87 557 cases of non-injurious traffic violations were recorded resulting in a crime rate of 576.8 per 100 000 population. There were 3 562 cases of sexual violence recorded in the first quarter of 2024, representing a crime rate of 23.5 per 100 000 population.

Mukavhi said Zimbabweans have lately experienced more incidences of crime that include theft, robbery, sexual offences, drug-related crimes and murder, vices that leave society entangled with emotional, psychological and physical damage.

“In addition, acts of crime may result in tensions within families, financial losses, expenditures on private deterrence, mental disorders and loss of life,” he said.
“At the Government level, expenditures associated with law enforcement and criminal justice are incurred at the expense of social service delivery.”

He said the ZimStat crime statistics inform policy development and planning in the criminal justice system while exposing crime trends in communities thereby enabling law enforcement arms to develop strategic interventions to curtail their growth.