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Violent property crimes, such as common robbery and armed robbery, are increasing. These increases are particularly noticeable in the last quarter of 1998 and the first quarter of 1999. Reported cases of robbery have shown the most dramatic increase among all crime types across the recording period. Year on year figures for ‘common (other) robbery’ are as follows: 1994: 32 423; 1995: 40 881; 1996: 51 506; 1997:52 678; and 1998, 62 111.
Serious cases of robbery are recorded as aggravated robbery. In fact, the category of aggravated robbery is a ‘basket’ of serious crimes. Among others, this encompasses all serious cases of robbery, including bank robberies, robbery of cash in transit, hijacking as well as all other robberies where high levels of violence (or at least the potential to use it) are present.
Firearms are used in most cases of aggravated robbery. Armed house-robbery, where the robbery occurs while the victims are at home, would be classified as aggravated robbery. Thus, many cases of attacks on farms and smallholdings fulfil the criteria for aggravated robbery. This makes aggravated robbery an extremely serious crime with direct economic and social consequences.
Overall, aggravated robbery has shown an interesting trend across the recording period (see Figure 4). It is one of the few crime types that has shown some clear declines, these occurring during 1995 and 1996. However, there has been a clear increase in cases of aggravated robbery during 1998 and the first few months of 1999. These increases have been relatively dramatic and have cancelled out any decreases that might have occurred earlier.
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