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The new quarterly crime statistics being presented by ZimStat as it expands the range of activity it quantifies, need to be studied, but also need to be carefully interpreted and we also need to look at the criminal acts that are almost certainly under-reported, for a start so far as the police are concerned gender-based violence.
The figure 0f 208 027 recorded criminal acts in the last three months of last year includes 89 480 traffic violations where no one was injured. That makes up 43 percent of the total.
We think there are several problems in lumping this vast block of offences with all the other offences in the same set of statistics, and even then in the category of public safety and State security, along with a very small number of other offences similarly classified under the UN system ZimStat uses.
For a start most people do not feel a traffic violation that causes no injury is criminal, even though contraventions of the Road Traffic Act and the Road and Road Traffic Regulations are defined criminal activity.
But for the average Zimbabwean driving through a red light is different to a trivial theft, say the theft of $1 which most would consider far more serious.
In any case those roughly 1 000 reported traffic violations a day are almost certainly grossly under-reported. Anyone spending a couple of hours in central Harare in the late afternoon will see far more.
And these violations are not something that most people rush to report if they see them, unless they have been involved in an accident with a violator. We do not see queues at police stations reporting that the driver in front of them went through a red light.
Even when it comes to employment and visa applications, most forms make it clear that minor infringements of traffic law, and sometimes any of the more minor infringements of traffic law, do not count when you are asked to list recent convictions.
ZimStat are supposed, under the UN standards they are applying, to count these traffic violations in, but we feel they should be split off from the rest, what almost all of us would regard as real crimes, rather than have the statistics clogged with the huge number we see in the batch for the last quarter of last year.
Perhaps more importantly we could see major fluctuations in total crime between quarters depending on how the police are enforcing traffic law at any particular time, such as an increase in robbery, and there were only 2 722 reported robberies in the three months, being missed because drivers were better behaved and traffic violations dropped more than 10 000.
Traffic violations that lead to death or injury, and which must be reported, and even the charges of reckless and negligent driving should be included in the general crime statistics, and there are suitable categories for negligence causing injury and for unintentional deaths.
In other words ZimStat should keep us posted, but could have separate statistics for traffic violations where there is no injury as a sort of supplement not included in the grand totals.
The second common sets of criminal offences were crimes against property. Here we had in the three months 35 392 thefts, 10 438 burglaries where the thief broke into premises before stealing, and 2 722 robberies where the thief used violence or the threat of violence to steal.
While anecdotal evidence tells us that most robberies, and a majority of burglaries are reported to police and so end up in the statistics, straight theft is probably significantly under-reported.
People report the big thefts, but most will not bother to see the police if something small of modest value is stolen.
Crimes against the person, which Zimbabwe regards as more serious than crimes against property, and a category where most would define robbery as a crime of violence rather than a crime of property, are the third most common group: 27 393 assaults of threats and 9 854 dangerous acts.
There are the less frequent crimes against the person: 1 895 acts of negligence, 234 acts of insult, 118 acts against liberty, 14 acts of discrimination, six acts meant to cause fear or emotional distress, three acts of trespass against the person, and two acts of human trafficking.
Again we have under-reporting. Quite a few of the fights and thumping when young men are drinking too much beer must miss the police statistics unless someone needs medical attention, and we suspect that insulting behaviour must be far more common than around one insult, or even severe insult, a day in Zimbabwe.
Discrimination is not common, but we worry about the human trafficking statistics. Two in three months must be on the low side.
The police believe that quite a bit of gender-based violence is missing from their assault statistics, and others would agree when you look at the results of surveys that those battling to end the practice do, and the numbers making police reports.
We probably have much the same in sexual offences, 3 175 in the three months, about 33 cases a day of rape, aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault. Again it must be higher if we look at surveys.
There are still many personal and cultural reasons why victims of these crimes to do come forward.
More do, thanks to the serious efforts the police have made and the systems the police have put in place to ensure that victims of gender violence and sexual assault are treated properly and sympathetically, are taken seriously and that the medical evidence is gathered quickly.
But these crimes still rely on neighbours, family and friends backing the victims, making their own reports where necessary, and realising that the victims of these crimes are never responsible for being assaulted.
The other area of violent crime, murder, attempted murder and causing unintentional death, fortunately still see low if growing numbers.
In the three months there were 319 intentional homicides, 328 attempted intentional homicides, and 398 non-intentional homicides. All homicides have to be reported.
One problem, that could usefully be addressed in Zimbabwean law, is the crime of culpable homicide. This is where a person can be blamed for a death, but did not intend to kill. But there are two types.
In one we have cases where someone intended harm, usually through an assault although did not want it to as far as death. In the other we have those where someone by omission, negligence or the like causes a death, such as in road traffic accidents where they are breaking a law or through failure to follow laid down safety rules.
Sentencing might well be the same, but it would be useful to distinguish deaths were harm was desired and deaths where harm was not desired.
Murders always have the motive to cause death, or to make such a reckless assault that the reasonable person would realise death was the most likely result. ZimStat have a done a good job in bringing these crime statistics into their fold, where a far better idea and understanding of the problems of our society can be seen and the sort of wild theories seen in social media can be eliminated by fact.
But we also need to understand that these are police statistics, and that for many crimes we can have serious levels of under-reporting, even when the crime is serious, and that we need to analyse the statistics carefully, such as with traffic violations without injuries, so we do not try and equate going through a red light with a killing.
Online Reporter