Crime in South Africa

Crime is a prominent issue in South Africa. The country has a very high rate of murders, assaults, rapes (adult, child, elderly and infant), and other crimes compared to most countries. Most emigrants from South Africa state that crime was a big factor in their decision to leave. The South African Police Service is responsible for managing 1,115 police stations across South Africa.

In February 2007, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation was contracted by the South African government to carry out a study on the nature of crime in South Africa. The study concluded that the country is exposed to high levels of violence as a result of different factors.

A survey for the period 1990–2000 compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ranked South Africa second for assault and murder (by all means) per capita and first for rapes per capita in a data set of 60 countries. Total crime per capita was 10th out of the 60 countries in the dataset.

The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute have conducted research on the victims of crime which shows the picture of South African crime as more typical of a developing country.

Recently released statistics from the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Statistics South Africa (SSA) saw a slight decline of 1.4% in violent crimes committed in South Africa.

Around 49 people are murdered in South Africa each day. The murder rate increased rapidly in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1994 and 2009, the murder rate halved from 67 to 34 murders per 100,000 people. Between 2011 and 2015, it stabilised to around 32 homicides per 100,000 people although the total number of lives lost has increased due to the increase in population. There have been numerous press reports on the manipulation of crime statistics that have highlighted the existence of incentives not to record violent crime. Nonetheless, murder statistics are considered accurate.

Homicides per 100,000 from April to March:

The country has one of the highest rates of rape in the world, with some 65,000 rapes and other sexual assaults reported for the year ending in March 2012, or 127.6 per 100,000 people in the country. The incidence of rape has led to the country being referred to as the "rape capital of the world". One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year. More than 25 per cent of South African men questioned in a survey published by the Medical Research Council (MRC) in June 2009 admitted to rape; of those, nearly half said they had raped more than one person. Three out of four of those who had admitted rape indicated that they had attacked for the first time during their teens. South Africa has amongst the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world.

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