PRETORIA - South African households continue to face high levels of crime, with murder and housebreaking among the major concerns highlighted in the latest Statistics South Africa survey.
More than 63,000 households experienced murder in the 2025/26 financial year, up from 59,000 the previous year.
That’s a 6.8 percent increase, according to Stats SA’s latest Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey.
The increase comes despite police statistics showing that murders fell by 5.9 percent in the first quarter of the current financial year, compared with the previous quarter.
Housebreaking remains the most common crime experienced by households, with 2.3 million households reporting incidents over the past five years.
More than 1.5 million households experienced housebreaking in the 2024/25 financial year alone.
The survey also found a 31.5 percent decline in the number of households experiencing sexual offences compared with the previous year.
Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke says many crimes are not reported to police.
Of the 1.4 million incidents of theft of personal property recorded in the 2024/25 financial year, only 37 percent were reported to police.
Maluleke says respondents cited a belief that police would not do anything and a lack of proof as reasons for not reporting the crimes.
“Some people are just not talking about these things, but on a daily basis I can affirm that we experience a lot of violence,” Maluleke says.
READ: Fear and mistrust keep corruption underreported, says HSRC
He says while the statistics may be correct, they could also be missing incidents that go unreported.
Maluleke says unemployment was identified as a reason for violence against women and children by 64.6 percent of women surveyed and 66 percent of men.
However, he says the relationship between unemployment and crime is not straightforward.
More than 56 percent of households that experienced home robbery reported that a weapon was used.
In 60 percent of those cases, the weapon was a firearm.