Crime stats show crime is on the rise

South Africa’s crime statistics for July to September (Q3 2023) were recently released. Unfortunately, they don’t paint a pretty picture. In just those three months, almost 7 000 (6 945 to be exact) people were murdered. While this was slightly lower than the 7 004 people murdered in Q3 of 2022, the outlook remains rather bleak, with a police force seemingly unable to control the rampant crime in the country. More than 13 000 people suffered sexual assault, while another 42 297 people were “seriously” assaulted. Common assault was on the rise when compared with the corresponding period in 2022, with 45 348 cases reported during this period compared with the 44 390 reported in year before. Almost 166 000 contact crimes were reported during these three months, while

6 009 hijackings, 6 045 robberies at residential properties and 4 910 robberies at nonresidential premises were also reported. There were 542 truck jackings reported.

According to News 24, Police Minister Bheki Cele, who announced the statistics, said that while crime remained at unacceptable levels in South Africa, there had been some breakthroughs in various crime sectors, such as that of child pornography, with several people recently arrested for the crime. He added that the police were “getting some hold” on cash-in-transit hijackings.

Of course, these reported breakthroughs are very good news for society. However, these latest crime statistics show that South Africans continue to face a serious problem of violent crime, including murder and severe assault. Guy Lamb, criminologist and senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University, points out that the per capita murder rate of 45 per 100 000 is the highest it has been in 20 years, and is a 50% increase on the murder rate in 2012/13.

These statistics should be very troubling to every South African, and even tourists who choose South Africa as a holiday destination. Perhaps even more troubling is the police’s seeming inability to do much about it. Lamb explains that while the South African Police Service has “reconfigured its policing strategies and plans” in response to the crisis, these new approaches “mostly reaffirm the way the police have typically pursued policing for the past three decades – fighting a ‘war’ on crime and ‘sweeping away’ criminals”.

Lamb points out that this strategy is a no-win situation for the police and society, as the ‘war’ on crime is a fight that the police force cannot win by itself. Indeed, as he explains, violent crime is a complex phenomenon and the erasing thereof requires buy-in from all corners of society, from the police to government, to the citizens themselves.

South Africa finds itself in the midst of many factors that act as a catalyst to violent crime: poverty, inequality, unemployment, substance abuse, inequitable gender norms, and dangerous political rhetoric. Many, if not all, of these factors cannot be solved by the police. Yes, we need the police to actively have feet on the ground and do their jobs in arresting criminals and securing successful convictions, but this is after the fact. Erasing violent crime means minimising the factors that may lead to violent crime, and I see little political will to address these issues.