South Africa’s latest crime stats – a massive wave of red as violence escalates

The South African Police Service (SAPS) has presented the latest crime statistics for the country, showing a wave of red across almost all crime categories as criminal activity escalates.

Presenting the data on Wednesday (23 November), police minister Bheki Cele conceded that things look bad, but noted that the statistics for Q2 2023 are being compared against data from a period when the country was under various stages of lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The data reported crimes from 1 July 2022 to 20 September 2022 and are compared against the same period in 2021.

He noted that over the comparable period, South Africa was under lockdown stages 4, 3 and 2 – explaining why the latest figures show such high rates of escalation.

However, the minister admitted that the crime figures show that aggression and violence are at worrying levels in South Africa.

The July to September months saw a record number of assault cases reported to the police in five years, he said, with 7,004 people killed by other persons in the country.

“More must be done to prevent and also respond to these crimes that are often carried out publicly in a violent manner,” he said.

“While the overview of these crime statistics may be disheartening at face value, they should not make us lose confidence in our endeavour to fight crime. The rule of law must stand firm in South Africa.”

Cele said that it is clear that the SAPS must continue to sharpen its responses to crime, including arresting some members of the SAPS who choose to work against the law.

He said that as the country heads towards the festive season, criminals tend to be brazen as they try to undermine the rule of law – but SAPS is moving to combat this by putting 10,000 more boots on the ground in December to intensify police visibility during the festive season and beyond.

“More boots will be on the ground, and escalated crime prevention and crime-combating operations will be a daily occurrence until the end of January 2023.”

The only two crime categories that saw a reduction in reported crimes over the period were burglary at non-residential premises and arson.

The tables below outline the key statistics.

SA crime stats: Q2 2021/22 vs Q2 2022/23

• Contact crimes include murder, attempted murder and sexual offences, as well as common assault and robbery.
• Contact-related crimes include arson and malicious injury to property.
• Other serious crimes include commercial crime, shop-lifting, and other types of theft – while aggravated robbery includes hijackings, robbery at residences, and cash-in-transit heists and bank robberies.
• Crimes detected as a result of police action cover crimes discovered by active policing, such as roadblocks and raids. This category covers the illegal possession of firearms, DUI or driving under the influence (of drugs or alcohol), and the use, possession or trade of illegal drugs.

Biggest increases in crime categories for 2022/23

Crime detected as a result of police action

Read: Big jump in hijackings in South Africa – these are the hotspot areas and the worrying new trend to look out for