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In today's blog we will take a look at South Africa's crime statistics as published with the police. And we will immediately add the disclaimer that not all crimes are reported to police and therefore the numbers reported on here will be lower than what is actually experienced by South Africans or rather people within the borders of South Africa. We take a look at the numbers below.
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How violent is South Africa. And is it getting any worse?
We will start of by looking at the most violent crimes in South Africa. Murder, attempted murder and assault with the intent of doing grievous bodily harm. We plot all of these numbers on a bar chart over time below.
As the bar chart above shows the number of cases of reported assaults is far higher than the number of cases of murder and attempted murder. And over time the number of reported assaults have come down considerably from 216 754 cases reported in 2007 to 182 933 cases in 2016. While this is encouraging it still means that 3.3 out of every 1000 people in South Africa is assaulted with the intent of doing grievous bodily harm to the person being assaulted.
Murders in South Africa has not come down at the same rate as that of assaults, as the number of recorded murders in South Africa in 2007 was 19 106, it came in at 18 673 in 2016. 500 odd less murders a year than 9 years ago is hardly improvements the police can brag about. And the same can be said for attempted murders in South Africa. In 2007 attempted murders was just shy of 20 000 for that particular year, and in 2016, 18 127 reported cases for attempted murder was recorded. Again no real significant change in the numbers over time to give South Africans a sense of relief that police is getting on top of the crime problem in South Africa.
While we highlighted the most violent crimes first, we will now look at the total number of crimes against the people in South Africa. They include the violent categories we highlighted first, including sexual offences, common assault and common robbery as well as robbery with aggravating circumstances.
Murders in South Africa has not come down at the same rate as that of assaults, as the number of recorded murders in South Africa in 2007 was 19 106, it came in at 18 673 in 2016. 500 odd less murders a year than 9 years ago is hardly improvements the police can brag about. And the same can be said for attempted murders in South Africa. In 2007 attempted murders was just shy of 20 000 for that particular year, and in 2016, 18 127 reported cases for attempted murder was recorded. Again no real significant change in the numbers over time to give South Africans a sense of relief that police is getting on top of the crime problem in South Africa.
While we highlighted the most violent crimes first, we will now look at the total number of crimes against the people in South Africa. They include the violent categories we highlighted first, including sexual offences, common assault and common robbery as well as robbery with aggravating circumstances.
As the bar chart shows that the total number of crimes against people in South Africa has been declining and is at a far lower level than it was in 2007, it has been increasing since 2013 again though. In 2007, a total of 724 393 cases against people were recorded, and by 2013 this dropped to 608 724 cases, but by end of 2016 this number increased to 623 223 cases. The reversal in this trend must be concerning police members and management. Robbery with aggravating circumstances actually increased from 2007 to 2016, with the number of cases going up from 126 038 in 2007 to 132 527 by 2016.
While the above looked at specific crimes against people, we will now take a look at property related crimes. This includes buglary at non residential premises, burglaries at residential premises, theft of motor vehicles and motor cycles, theft out of motor vehicles and motor cycles and stock theft.
The first observation one can make is the fact that burglaries at residential premises far outstrips other property related crimes. And when looking at the numbers we have not seen any real improvements of this type of crime over time. The number of burglaries at residential premises have actually increased when looking at the reported numbers in 2007 and comparing it to 2016. 248 462 burglaries at residential properties took place in 2007, while 250 606 took place in 2016.
Concerning for business owners should be the consistent increase in burglaries at non-residential properties. 58 240 non-residential burglaries were reported in 2007 and that number increased by 28% over the period to 75 008 in 2016.
Actual theft of motor vehicles and motorcycles have been declining over the years (by 37.4% from 2007 to 2016) with the number of thefts of motor vehicles and motor cycles declining from 85 979 in 2007 to 53 809 in 2016. One can assume more vehicles fitted with tracking devices assisted in the slow down of motor vehicle and motorcycle thefts.
Sadly the number of cases of goods being stolen out of motor vehicles have continued to show an increase over time with the number of incidents rising from 123 361 in 2007 to 139 386 in 2016. This is smash and grabs, and remote jammers being used in which case owners lock their cars, but someone near by jams the signal of the owner locking his car. The owner thinks his car is locked but because the signal is jammed the car is not locked. As the owner walks off the thief then has easy access to an unlocked car.
So what does the crime statistics look like across South Africa's provinces? The stacked bar chart shows the percentage of major crime types per province as well as for South Africa as a whole.
Concerning for business owners should be the consistent increase in burglaries at non-residential properties. 58 240 non-residential burglaries were reported in 2007 and that number increased by 28% over the period to 75 008 in 2016.
Actual theft of motor vehicles and motorcycles have been declining over the years (by 37.4% from 2007 to 2016) with the number of thefts of motor vehicles and motor cycles declining from 85 979 in 2007 to 53 809 in 2016. One can assume more vehicles fitted with tracking devices assisted in the slow down of motor vehicle and motorcycle thefts.
Sadly the number of cases of goods being stolen out of motor vehicles have continued to show an increase over time with the number of incidents rising from 123 361 in 2007 to 139 386 in 2016. This is smash and grabs, and remote jammers being used in which case owners lock their cars, but someone near by jams the signal of the owner locking his car. The owner thinks his car is locked but because the signal is jammed the car is not locked. As the owner walks off the thief then has easy access to an unlocked car.
So what does the crime statistics look like across South Africa's provinces? The stacked bar chart shows the percentage of major crime types per province as well as for South Africa as a whole.
The Northern Cape has the highest prevalence of crimes against the person, with 46.7% of crimes in the province being that of crimes against the person. The Western Cape has the lowest prevalence of crimes against the person, with it making up 31.8% of total crimes in the province. KwaZulu-Natal has the lowest prevalence of contact crimes (Arson and malicious damage to property), with it only making up 5.9% of the crimes in the province while the Free State has the highest prevalence of such crimes with it making up 8.5% of total crimes in the Free State.
Mpumalanga has the highest prevalence rate for property crimes, with it making up 40.3% of the crimes in the province, while the Western Cape has the lowest prevalence rate for property crimes with it making up 30.4% of total crimes in the Western Cape.
Crimes detected as a result of police action is the highest in the Western Cape, with such crimes making up 29.6% of all crimes recorded in the Western Cape, while crimes detected as a result of police action is lowest in the Northern Cape, with such crimes only making up 12.8% of total crimes in the Northern Cape.
Mpumalanga has the highest prevalence rate for property crimes, with it making up 40.3% of the crimes in the province, while the Western Cape has the lowest prevalence rate for property crimes with it making up 30.4% of total crimes in the Western Cape.
Crimes detected as a result of police action is the highest in the Western Cape, with such crimes making up 29.6% of all crimes recorded in the Western Cape, while crimes detected as a result of police action is lowest in the Northern Cape, with such crimes only making up 12.8% of total crimes in the Northern Cape.
So in which province do the most number of crimes take place? And what is the number of crimes expressed as a percentage of the population in a specific province?
While Gauteng has the highest number of crimes reported, if the number of crimes is expressed as a percentage of it's population (or per 100 citizens staying in the province), the number of crimes in Gauteng only came to 3.3%, far less than the Western Cape that has an average of 5.8%. So while more crimes occur in Gauteng, there is a lot more people staying in Gauteng, and therefor the number of crimes expressed as a percentage of the province's population is less than that of South Africa's crime Mecca, the Western Cape.
The Northern Cape had the least amount of crimes reported, hardly surprising considering it's small population size and rather small economic size. But the winner in terms of lowest percentage crimes is Limpopo. With total number of crimes in the province expressed as percentage of this province's population size only came to 1.7%
Data sources:
https://www.saps.gov.za/
The Northern Cape had the least amount of crimes reported, hardly surprising considering it's small population size and rather small economic size. But the winner in terms of lowest percentage crimes is Limpopo. With total number of crimes in the province expressed as percentage of this province's population size only came to 1.7%
Data sources:
https://www.saps.gov.za/