By Neelam Rahim

South Africans feel less safe, and at least 31% will call anyone but the police after witnessing a crime. This was revealed in the new Statistics South Africa’s “Victims of Crime” report, released yesterday. Fewer people felt safe walking in their neighbourhoods during the day, with only 36% who felt safe walking alone at night.

StatsSA Deputy Director for Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey, Kenneth Chatindiara, told Radio Islam International the survey covered three essential areas. The first was to do with the household experience of crime.

According to Kenneth, six types of crime were measured. Housebreaking has increased from around 809 thousand households experiencing that in 2020 to approximately 933 thousand in 2021. An increase was also observed in home robberies from about 112 thousand to about 165 thousand in the current report. Regarding the individual experience of crime, the theft of personal property increased from 732 thousand to a staggering 1.1 million.

He said there is a decrease in the percentage of people who feel safe walking alone day and night. The decline during the day reports from 84.8% in 2020 to around 81.3% in 2021; at night time, it decreased from 39.6% to approximately 36%.

The percentage of individuals who have taken it upon themselves to protect themselves against crime has increased by about 17.4%, 30.3% in the previous reporting period, to about 47.7%.

The method by which people have attempted to protect themselves from crime includes them changing their walking patterns; they also use security features in their households like burglar bars and private security. He added that about 3.8% have started to arm themselves with weapons, including guns and knives.

There are also unfortunate ones who have not taken any measures to protect themselves against crime, and around 50% of them either get nothing done or don’t know what to do about it.

It was further observed that 17.5% indicated they would leave it to the police to deal with the crime.

According to Kenneth, from the data collected, they would advise our leaders to attend to each particular type of crime and see how it can be combated.

“Crime is a need to social behaviour.”

Listen to the interview on Radio Islam’s podcast below.

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