Victims of Crime Survey shows urgent need for professional police

28 September 2017

While the DA welcomes the Stats SA Victims of Crime Survey’s indication that households and individuals experienced a steady decrease in crime over the last four years, the following worrying trends highlight the urgent need for the professionalisation of the police:

- Only half of housebreaking victims reported the crime to the police;

- Almost 40% of victims choose to report it to somebody else, nearly 1% of which to the local gang;

- Almost one third of respondents don’t report housebreakings because the police cannot or will not do anything about it;

- Only about 40% of households that experienced housebreakings were satisfied with police actions;

- Nearly one third of households reported that they experienced police response times taking up to as long as one hour; and

- Almost one quarter of households reported that they never see police on duty in uniform in their neighbourhood.

This trend sadly follows on the previous Victims of Crime Survey that showed an 81% failure rate in making arrests in reported housebreakings and that 97% of housebreakings did not end in a conviction.

These concerning findings clearly show that the people of South Africa have completely lost trust in the custodians of their safety.

Police Minister, Fikile Mbalula, must prioritise resourcing the police, stop wasting time on pointless social media campaigns and get serious about what victims of crime really need. A professional and trusted police service.

Issued by Zakhele Mbhele, DA Shadow Minister of Police, 28 September 2017