Crime in South Africa worse than official stats suggest

This is Cyril Ramaphosa’s second bite at the presidential cherry. However, there are faint signs that he might do better this time around.

Since crime, especially violent crime, is a key issue, the appointment of Police Minister Senzo Mchunu is particularly worth watching. The early signs are good.

Nor, unlike his dire predecessor, Bheki Cele, is Mchunu wasting his energy trying to polish turds.

Last week, presenting the crime statistics for the first quarter of the government’s 2024-25 financial year, Mchunu took a different tack.

Instead of waxing lyrical, as Cele would have done, on the fact that there were only 30 more murders in the period April-June than in the same period the previous year – Mchunu was at least honest.

ALSO READ: Why release the stats if they’re not used to fight crime?

“Contact crimes are wreaking havoc and instilling fear,” he said. The numbers told a “sobering story” and were a “stark reminder” that urgent action was needed.

The latest figures unsurprisingly show that the crimes that minister says “should worry us most” – murder, rape, hijacking, kidnapping for ransom payments and extortion – are generally on the increase. Contact crimes were up 2.6% measured against the first quarter of 2023-24.

Compared to the same period last year, in January-March 2024 there were 247 more murders (+3.9%), to a total of 6 536. It all adds up: that’s 1 947 more murders (+42%) than in the corresponding period four years ago. AprilJune 2024 was insignificantly 0.5% down on the corresponding quarter last year, to total 6 198.

So far, in the three months of the 2024 calendar year, contact crimes are up 4.6%, with sex crimes specifically up 4.3%. Truck hijacking, however, was up 5.3% with 458 reported incidents, an increase of 61% since 2020.

The only positives were in what Saps calls the “trio crimes”: car hijacking, robbery at residential premises and robbery at nonresidential premises. They were only marginally up by 0.2% in January to March, to drop 2.7% in April-June.

ALSO READ: Crime stats: Hope for a safer country fades

These Saps statistics are only part of the picture. Arguably at least as important in gauging the true cost of crime are the regular victims of crime (VOC) surveys carried out by StatsSA.

These, based they are on the experience at a household and individual level of the sharp end of lawlessness, capture a broader, more accurate and even more alarming picture than does the Saps.

The most recent VOC survey, released last week, indicates that the serious crime problem is far worse than is officially acknowledged. According to these figures, sexual offences against individuals increased by 73.3% in 2023- 24 compared to the previous year and assaults increased by 12%.

In 2023-24 about 6% of all families experienced a housebreaking but only 44% of them reported it. Another 2% of households experienced a home robbery but only 58% of these households reported the incidents.

In the same period, around 443 000 individuals were robbed on the street but only 44% reported it to the police. About a quarter of those robbed were injured, with two-thirds of them needing medical attention.

ALSO READ: Crime stats: Police must adapt strategies, nab right people

Around 295 000 South Africans were assaulted in 2023-24, more than half of them with a weapon, mostly a knife. Yet only 54% of them reported it.

Mchunu made a point that’s often lost in this punctilious tallying of losses and gains.

“These numbers represent more than just figures on a page,” he said. “They reflect the lived realities of our citizens – their fears, their losses, and their hopes for a safer tomorrow.”

Of course, it’s common for new ministers to emphasise the failures of their predecessors while promising to do better. Nevertheless, Mchunu does seem more empathetic towards the plight of ordinary South Africans.