Survey reveals rising concerns of crime in communities

DESPITE decreases in housebreakings, murders and theft of motor vehicles in the past five years, South Africans continue to face significant safety challenges according to a recent survey.

- NADIA KHAN

Community police forums and security companies report criminals are becoming increasingly brazen.

According to a newly-released Statistics South Africa’s Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey, from April 2024 to March 2025, in respect of the number of households that experienced a specific type of crime, there were 1 123 000 reported housebreakings during this period.

However, while there was a decrease compared to the previous year, it was not statistically significant.

In addition, during this period, from the households that were surveyed, there were also 213 000 home robberies, 123 000 assaults, 62 000 theft of motor vehicles, 99 000 deliberate damaging to dwelling, 14 000 murders and 35 000 sexual offences.

The survey also looked at trends for individual crimes over the 12-month period (2024/2025), whereby 1 160 000 people said they had their personal property stolen, while 470 000 were robbed on the street, 363 000 were victims of assault, and 102 000 had been hijacked.

In addition, 44 000 people said they were victims of a sexual offence, and 337 000 experienced psychological violence, which is coercion, defamation, verbal insult or harassment.

According to the survey, during the 2024/25 period, more than half of the households did not report a housebreaking incident to the police.

Most households indicated the reason for this was due to the “police could do nothing/lack of proof”, followed by the “police would not do anything about it” or “solved it myself”.

In respect of theft of motor vehicles and deliberate damaging to dwellings, the majority of victims reported the incidents to the police.

According to the survey, in the incidences of home robberies and assaults during 2024/25, the weapons mainly used were guns, followed by knives and axes/pangas. It also found that only 36.1% of South Africans felt safe walking alone at night in their own communities.

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