Burglary tops the crime list – survey

Clothes favoured in housebreakings

Housebreaking or burglary was a major problem in 2017/2018‚ accounting for 54% of all household crimes in the latest Victims of Crime Survey.

The survey‚ released yesterday‚ is based on crime figures produced by Statistics South Africa‚ which are estimated from household surveys.

It provides insight about the dynamics of crime from the perspective of households and victims of crime.

It also explores public perceptions of police‚ prosecutors‚ the courts and correctional services in the prevention of crime and victimisation.

An estimated 832122 incidents of housebreaking occurred‚ according to the latest survey‚ compared to 776 933 in the previous year.

There were an estimated 156 089 incidents of house robberies‚ up from 151 279 in the previous year.

House robbery is classified as a crime where there is contact between the perpetrators and one or more household members. It is often more violent than housebreaking where there is no contact between the attacker and victims.

The survey reflected more than 1.5m incidents of crime being experienced by households in SA in 2017/2018 – an increase from about 1.2m incidents in the previous year.

The survey said 1.6m individuals were victims of crime in 2017/2018‚ of which 74% experienced theft of personal property‚ robbery or assault.

Theft of motor vehicles increased from 47 586 in 2016/17 to 56 256 incidents in 2017/18.

Clothes (31%) were the most common items stolen during housebreaking followed by cellphones (23.6%) and food (22.2%).

South Africans canvassed believed that crime‚ particularly property crime‚ had increased during the past three years.

Households were asked in the survey about their satisfaction at the way in which courts generally dealt with perpetrators‚ their reasons for being satisfied or dissatisfied‚ and their feelings about sentences imposed on perpetrators of crime.

The survey found that 54.2% of SA households were satisfied with how police dealt with crime‚ down from 57.3% the previous year.

About 41.1% of households were satisfied with the way in which courts dealt with perpetrators of crime‚ down from 44.9%.