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South Africa Turns to Google in Bid to Curb Crime

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A spate of assaults on drivers utilizing GPS navigation programs prompted South Africa to ask Google Maps to exclude a infamous crime hotspot. The intervention comes because the authorities battle to treatment widespread crime.

Content material warning: Disturbing particulars comply with under.

An hour after he landed in South Africa in November, Walter Fischel was shot within the face by robbers. The 55-year-old US vacationer had been following the instructions on a world positioning system (GPS) within the employed automotive he was driving from Cape City Worldwide Airport to his rental lodging in Simons City.

The shortest route on the GPS had led Fischel to Nyanga township. There, he later advised journalists, his automotive was surrounded by a bunch of males who shot him and made off with the automotive, his cash and passport.

In August, Kar Hao Teoh, a British surgeon, was gunned down within the space whereas utilizing the path to keep away from roads closures. Nyanga on the Cape Flats in Cape City and the areas that surrounding it are infamous for violent crime.

Within the wake of the assaults, the authorities requested Google Maps to take away the crime sizzling spot from its GPS choices.

Excessive crime ranges

Google South Africa Director Alistair Mokoena says authorities requested the deletion of the Nyanga crime hotspot from the corporate’s GPS routes.

“There’s a particular portion of that route that passes via Nyanga that is deemed unsafe by the authorities, who mentioned ‘You as Google, can you be sure that we do not suggest that individual portion of the route?” Mokoena advised DW.

In response to police, there are about 58 such crime hotspots throughout the nation, he mentioned. Google can nevertheless solely take away a location from the GPS when authorities put in a request.

The most recent official crime statistics present that 78 individuals are killed in South Africa on common on daily basis and 100 girls are raped each 24 hours.

Minister of Police Bheki Cele advised journalists that over 10,000 rapes have been reported between July and September this 12 months. Lots of the 1000’s of murders over the identical interval concerned robbers with firearms.

“Regardless of the general drop within the nation’s homicide price between July and September this 12 months, 6,945 individuals have been murdered in South Africa in three months. That is why we will not take consolation from the discount. We will not say we’ve got arrived. We will not say we’ve got performed all the very best. These figures are too excessive,” Cele mentioned.

CCTV and safety guards in church

In November, Pastor Dwayne Gordon was shot lifeless when robbers attacked congregants throughout a night church service on the Eagle Christian Centre within the Johannesburg suburb of Newlands in Gauteng Province.

Authorities within the province lately launched a brand new safety construction through which “peace wardens” assist police operations.

Church buildings in lots of locations have deployed their very own CCTV surveillance programs and armed guards too.

Bishop Kelly Tsedu Muntswu of the Shiloh Household Church in Johannesburg needs the authorities to do extra.

“Carry the wardens to assist church buildings. They’re in all places. They’ve quick vehicles. They’re compassionate. They’re passionate. We see them,” Muntswu advised DW.

Criminals are outpacing police

“We now have seen crime enhance fairly considerably since 2012. It is stabilized in the newest quarterly crime statistics, but it surely’s nonetheless at extraordinarily elevated ranges,” Man Lamp, a criminologist advised DW.

South African police are being outpaced by criminals, he mentioned: “They [police] have not misplaced the struggle on crime however definitely they don’t seem to be successful it.”