SA violent crime down, but still unacceptably high, Cachalia says

Most violent crime in South Africa continued to decrease in the third quarter of the current financial year covering the three months from 1 October to 31 December 2025, but was still too high, acting police ministerFiroz Cachaliasaid on Friday. Presenting the latestquarterly crime statistics, Cachalia also highlighted the need to tackle organised crime, which PresidentCyril Ramaphosasingled out as “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and economic development” in hisState of the Nation addresslast week. Cachalia said the sense of cautious optimism in relation to overall national crime trends that he had referred to in his previous briefing last year remained.

“Most violent crime categories, including murder, rape, robbery and most property related crimes like theft and burglary continued to decrease, but remain at unacceptably high levels,” he said. After more than a decade of annual increases, murder, the most accurate crime statistic, had started decreasing in the first quarter of 2023-24, he noted. This trend had continued throughout the current financial year, with the third quarter showing a 8.7% decrease or 602 fewer lives lost.

“This means that over the past two years, the numbers of murders for the (third) quarter … had dropped by 17.6% or 1 359 fewer murders,” Cachalia said. Total contact crime — made up of all categories of violent crime — decreased in the quarter, with violent crime falling by 6.7% or 12 682 fewer cases reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS) compared with the same quarter in the previous financial year. “Over the past two years, total violent crime for this quarter is down by 8.3% or 15 763 fewer cases.

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This trend may well be attributable to enhanced policing operations,” the acting police minister said. Sexual offences were also down in the third quarter compared with the same period in the previous financial year, with rape down 3.2% to 11 430. Across South Africa, most communities recorded a decrease in violent and property crimes, but there were still too many that saw increases.

While there were double digit reductions in murder in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State and the North West, much smaller decreases were recorded in the Western and Eastern Cape and Limpopo and the Northern Cape saw increases. “Out of the 30 highest murder precincts, decreases were recorded in only 15 of them. The killings relating to gang violence in the Eastern and Western Cape in particular, remain worrisomely high,” Cachalia said. He said the police service was taking steps to strengthen efforts against gender-based and other forms of violence, including allocating an additional 999 police members to the detective services over the past year.

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