stats published<\/a> by the South African Police Service (SAPS), the respondents’ sentiments from the SoS report are no surprise.<\/p>\nOf concern is that the stats showed an increase in several crimes, including another jump in violent contact crimes, such as murder, attempted murder and assault.<\/p>\n
According to the SAPS, 6,289 people were murdered over the period, equating to 70 fatalities every day. Contact crimes, including sexual offences and robbery, comprised the biggest crime category, with 164,206 cases reported between 1 January 2023 and 31 March 2023.<\/p>\n
Put into a different context, there is one contact crime committed every 50 seconds of every day.<\/p>\n
The increase in criminal activity was recorded across all the provinces, with the usual suspects making up the bulk of crimes \u2013 Gauteng (27.2%), Western Cape (19.1%), Kwa-Zulu Natal (16%), and the Eastern Cape (10.3%).<\/p>\n
\u201cThese numbers are not only an indication of the nightmare many South Africans face daily, but they are indicative of a government which has totally lost control against crime,\u201d said CEO of the AA Willem Groenewald.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only do these statistics show crime is increasing, but they also show, alarmingly, that 81% of South Africans trust private security more than they do the South African Police Service (SAPS),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Considering the crime statistics in the country, 88% of the respondents to the SoS survey indicated they believe crime will increase in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven this response, it\u2019s no surprise that more and more people are spending money on personal security such as more burglar bars, alarm systems, and security cameras at their homes,\u201d said Groenewald.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur country is a dangerous place, and people desperately want to feel safe. However, the statistics show that our law enforcement agencies are failing to deal with the problem effectively,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
New trend<\/strong><\/p>\nCommenting on the latest crime stats, security group Fidelity noted that criminals are becoming more sophisticated and are adapting to policing to stay one step ahead.<\/p>\n
While there are many areas in the country known for their high levels of criminal activity – in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KZN in particular – attackers are also quickly adapting and finding gaps, the group said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would expect authorities to concentrate resources where the majority of the attacks are taking place,” the group said. “However, the problem with the attacks is the perpetrators are so sophisticated that they move around depending on where they assess the gaps to be.”<\/p>\n
For example, in April, 40% of the cash-in-transit robberies suddenly moved to KwaZulu-Natal. While the police were able to arrest some people involved, ultimately 70% of the attacks were successful and resulted in cash loss.<\/p>\n
Fidelity said more police visibility is needed.<\/p>\n
For the average citizen concerned about their personal safety, the group said how South Africans live their daily lives make a big difference in limiting potential risk of exposure to crime<\/p>\n
“So we need a renewed focus on personal safety measures. The first step is to live safer lives and to be more careful about our movements wherever we may be,” it said.<\/p>\n
“It goes without saying that it is impossible to prevent every type of crime from happening to us. You can, however, see a massive difference if people pay attention to their surroundings and what happens around them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRead: South Africans are cutting out DStv and gym as they try to make ends meet<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The majority of South Africans do not feel safe anymore as crime goes unabated in South Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":692923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[6926,26,5784],"class_list":["post-692851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-aa","tag-headline","tag-south-african-police-service-saps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692851"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":692987,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692851\/revisions\/692987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}