Pretoria – The accurate collection and capturing of crime information at police stations is vital for crime prevention, a security consultant said on Wednesday.

“The police Crime Administration System [CAS] will give you what has been put into it. It all depends on what you feed into the system,” retired police Major General Chris de Kock said at an Institute for Security Studies seminar in Pretoria.

De Kock was responsible for crime data collection at the SA Police Service 18 years ago.

He said the CAS was developed in the 1970s to administer crime.

The information captured on the system should be analysed all the time to obtain information on hotspots, peak times and the modus operandi used by criminals.

The information was correlated from stations, to clusters, and then to provincial level before it reached head office.

“It is impossible to say that every station does the analysis every 24 hours. If this is thoroughly done, it automatically ensures accurate and quality data to the head office,” said De Kock.

The reason why crime went down in 2009, 2010, and 2011 was because of the soccer Confederation Cup and the 2010 World Cup, he said.

“Police analysed the system daily and accurately, and used it to prevent crime during that period.”

– SAPA