{"id":836023,"date":"2025-08-26T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=836023"},"modified":"2025-08-26T15:03:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:03:52","slug":"what-south-africas-official-crime-statistics-dont-tell-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/836023\/what-south-africas-official-crime-statistics-dont-tell-you\/","title":{"rendered":"What South Africa’s official crime statistics don’t tell you"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Theft of personal property is the most common crime affecting South African individuals, but around 70% of victims choose not to report the crime to the police. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA, crime remains one of the defining challenges of life in South Africa, cutting across geography, gender and economic status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether in metropolitan centres or small rural towns, households and individuals continue to face the risk of break-ins, robberies, theft and other crimes that disrupt daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although police statistics capture reported offences, the Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey (GPSJS) provides insight into both reported and unreported crime, giving a fuller picture of overall safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the latest GPSJS, when looking at individuals, theft of personal property was the most common crime in 2024\/25. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.2 million people were affected, down from 1.3 million in 2023\/24. Stats SA said that most victims were males and people living in metro areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An estimated 1.3 million personal theft incidents occurred, affecting roughly 1.2 million individuals over the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, most victims chose not to report these crimes. 69% decided not to report, while 31% reported some or all incidents to the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA said consumer fraud showed a different trend, with incidents rising sharply from 552,000 in 2023\/24 to 811,000 in 2024\/25. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statistics body did, however, note that the share of victims reporting to police increased from 30.7% to 34.9%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to households, burglary has consistently been the most common crime experienced in South Africa, followed by home robbery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Male-headed households and those living in KwaZulu-Natal province were the most affected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the year (2024\/25), an estimated 1.5 million housebreaking incidents occurred. This represents 5.7% of all households in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, housebreaking was one of the least reported household crimes to the police, with only 43% of affected households taking cases to the police, a similar proportion as the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that the most common form of crime facing households was not reported to police around 57% of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

How South Africans try to stay safe\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The proportion of adults aged 16 and older who felt safe walking alone in their neighbourhoods during the day increased from 80,4% in 2023\/24 to 81,0% in 2024\/25. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, fewer South Africans reported feeling safe when walking after dark. Only 36.1% in 2024\/25, up marginally from 34,9% the previous year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Provincial differences were stark. Limpopo had the highest proportion of people who felt safe walking alone during the day (97.2%) and at night (64.2%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Western Cape residents were the most likely to feel unsafe during the day (31.4%), while Mpumalanga had the highest share of those who felt unsafe at night (73.0%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has also been an increase in adults looking to protect themselves against crime. The share of people who did something to guard against crime rose from 39.9% in 2023\/24 to 43.3% in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking only during safer hours was the most common precaution at 29.9%, followed by installing physical protection measures such as burglar doors at 28.7%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 80% of surveyed individuals said these measures made them feel safer.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crime remains one of South Africa’s largest problems, but many choose not to report incidents of crime to the police. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":645563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[1809],"class_list":["post-836023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836023","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836023"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836031,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836023\/revisions\/836031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}