Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa says the success achieved by the security forces in combating crime has improved South Africa's image abroad. Murder has decreased by 8.6%, while attempted murder and sexual offences are down 6.1% and 4.4% respectively.

The minister is releasing the crime statistics from 1 April 2009 to 1 March 2010.

Grievious Bodily Harm and assault had a marginal decrease of 0.5%.

Mthethwa says: "We shall strive to ensure we improve, by fostering partnerships with different stakeholders".

Further, there has been a decrease in aggravated robberies, one of the priority crimes, of 7.5% The minister said: "We believe that some of our initiatives that have been introduced, including profiling of wanted suspects and tactical response teams, have gone some way in stabilising these crimes.

It is the first time since 2005 that aggravated robberies have stabilised. Despite the decrease in murder and priority crimes, Mthethwa says there has been an increase in burglaries in residential premises over the last year.

These increased by 2.7%, but the minister says that the number has started stabilising, as these crimes have been increasing at "an alarming rate over the past five years, within an average of 25%."

There has also been an increase in commercial crimes, which has gone up by 8.1%.

While Mthethwa says that police have made an assertive effort to curb drug-related crimes, he says that police "have increased their ration of apprehending people in drug-related crimes by 13.6%."

Driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol increased by 10.6%.

On a positive note, Mthethwa says that the Hawks over the last year have arrested 46 of the top 50 most wanted criminals.

Police statistician General Chris de Kock says that there have been 2.1 million serious crimes in the last year. These include contact crimes, robberies, property related crimes, shop-lifting and theft.

Of the 2.1-million, 31.9% of these were contact crimes which include common assault, assault with intent to cause bodily harm, murder and attempted murder, as well as robbery with aggravating circumstance.

De Kock said that it was "the first time in the history of SAPS that the murder figure has decreased below 17 000 murders.

"It is a significant achievement given that murder is the most reliable crime figure in the world," De kock said.

At the present moment, now, there were 34.1 murders of the 100, 000 of the population.

National Police commissioner General Bheki Cele says that police morale in the last year has improved exponentially.

Cele told media in Pretoria, "When I first came I was signing (resignation) letters for 15 members that wanted to go every week. We have a list of 4,000 police who want to be reinlistsed.

But now, Cele says, "The first letter I signed (this year) was in August. They are not jumping out they are jumping in."

Cele also notes that Gauteng accounts for 50% of the country's crimes, but he says that with the boost in morale within the police service as well as (good) leadership the "situation will begin to reverse".