South Africans are more likely to be victims of crime in their own homes than elsewhere. Disaggregated data from Statistics SA show that more than 50% of all crime experienced by households in the country for 2015-16 was housebreaking.
Statistician-general Pali Lehohla told reporters "50% of all crime activities happen in a place you call home".
At a media briefing in Pretoria‚ Lehohla released a report by StatsSA that explored the extent of and circumstances surrounding housebreaking and home robbery. Overall‚ just half the criminal activities in the country were reported to police (358‚191) out of 727‚130 incidents.
Lehohla said crime in SA is actually declining‚ but the public perception is that it is shooting up. According to StatsSA: "One possible reason for the nonalignment between perception and experience of crime could be the media coverage of crime. An increasing number of households have access to news about crimes that took place in other parts of the country and in other countries."
"Another reason may be that even though the overall crime rate is decreasing‚ some specific crime types may be increasing‚ and households may be paying more attention to those crimes than the overall rates."
Lehohla said South Africans yearned for a safe country and this could be realised by 2059‚ if proper interventions were made. "Crime causes anxiety and anxiety hypertension‚ and hypertension causes‚ among other things‚ heart diseases. You don’t want to be anxious‚ you want to be safe."
For now, however, the statistics are not reassuring. An arrest is made in only one out of every five reported cases of housebreaking or home robbery. In addition‚ only one in five people arrested for housebreaking is convicted, and one in three people arrested for home robbery is convicted.
The StatsSA report recommended that the government speed up the implementation of the National Development Plan’s goal of eliminating crime by 2030.
The company also suggested measures that could mitigate crime in the country. These include encouraging the creation of and participation in community crime-prevention forums‚ increasing the number of police stations to bring them closer to the people, and increasing the police response times.
The report found that an estimated 727‚000 households experienced housebreaking in 2015-16 and a further 171‚000 households were victims of home robbery. This meant 50.1% of all crimes experienced by households were housebreaking‚ with home robberies second at 11.9%.
Other forms of crime facing households include theft from vehicles (10.4%) and theft of livestock and other animals (8.6%). Murder was the least common type of crime experienced by households in 2015-16 at 0.9%.
The report found that night time was when most housebreaking and home robberies took place, with more than 49% and 65%. For both housebreaking and house robbery‚ electrical equipment was the most targeted item. Jewellery‚ money and cellphones were the most common items stolen after electrical equipment.
The report also found that absence of community crime-prevention forums‚ long distances to police stations and lengthy police response times to emergency calls were factors that increased the odds of housebreaking.
People are more afraid to walk alone in their neighbourhoods than they were five years ago. The proportion of households that felt safe doing this during the day declined from 89.2% in 2011 to 83.7% in 2015-16. Those who felt safe doing it at night declined from 36.9% in 2011 to 30.7% in 2015-16.
TMG Digital
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