Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News, 2015-12-01
A Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) study has found South Africans have become extremely fearful of falling victim to crime while confidence in levels of satisfaction with the courts and police has declined.
According to the results of the latest Victims of Crime Survey (VOCS) released by (Stats SA) today, households increasingly feel that the levels of violent and property crimes are increasing.
Stats SA says this makes it unsafe to walk in parks or even allow children to play freely in their neighbourhoods.
It found the prevalence of housebreaking/burglary increased from 4,6% in 2010 to 5,1% in 2014/15. In the same period, home robbery decreased from 2,6% to 1,2%. About 2,1% of individuals experienced theft of their personal property, while 0,9% experienced assault in 2014/15.
Stats SA’s Kefiloe Masiteng says despite the high levels of violent crimes in the country, property-related crimes, such as housebreaking/burglary theft of personal property and theft of livestock were less likely to be reported to the police while contact crimes such as murder were more likely to be reported.
“The majority of households who did not report crime incidents to the police cited their reason for not doing so as their belief that the police will do nothing about their cases.”
Stats SA says as a result of fear of crime, households in South Africa took measures to protect themselves and their property while more than half of the households took physical protection measures for their homes and almost a third took physical protection measures for their vehicles.
“When asked about what they perceived to be the motive for perpetrators for committing property crimes, more than three-quarters of households in South Africa thought that property crimes were committed because of drug-related needs,” Stats SA said.
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