At least a fifth of South African households experience crime each year. It is highly unlikely that anyone will be brought to book for the crime, but for those criminals that go to jail a high percentage will leave in a coffin.

A person is most likely to be attacked in their home with half of all rapes and a third of assaults taking place within the home according to a major new country profile on South Africa by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime regional office for Southern Africa .

Tthe two most crime ridden provinces are Gauteng and the Western Cape – with the Western Cape showing a significantly higher rate of crime than Gauteng. So much for Gauteng’s bad reputation. The two provinces have the highest rates of violent crime – murder, aggravated robbery, serious assault and residential and business breakins. The province with the least crime is Limpopo.

“Of the nearly two and a half million recorded crimes in 2000, 1 455 895 went “unsolved”” and “half a million cases were withdrawn. Of the 609 928 cases that were sent to court, 211 762 ended in a conviction of the accused,” the report notes. In other words, only a quarter of reported crimes made it to court, and of those, only a third of offenders were convicted. Or put another way, only a tenth of reported crimes resulted in a conviction.

The report notes that, “the number of cases that resulted in a conviction was rather low. In 2000, it ranged from 49% for drug-related offences, 18% for murder, 8% for rape and 2% for car jacking. On average only one out of every five and a half reported murders end in the conviction of the perpetrator. For rape, the comparable ratio is one out of 11, and for car jacking one out of 53.”

A considerable number of crimes go unreported including rape, minor theft and many corporate crimes. The report notes that, “business appears to be quite selective when it comes to reporting crimes to the police. There was a higher propensity to report to the police, customer theft (51%) (than) employee theft (23%) and employee fraud (30%).” Murder is on a declining scale with almost a third less murders now than in 1994, however, attempted murder remains at constant levels. Serious assault is showing steady increases and levels of rape remain “at a very high level: still one of the single highest in the world.”

On a positive note, however, the report notes that, “once a case enters the prosecution service, the criminal justice system improves. Of all crimes that are prosecuted some three quarters result in a conviction of the accused, a result which compares favourably internationally.”

It notes that South Africa reports among the highest levels of violent crime in the world, with “one third of all crimes recorded by the police in 2000, violent in nature. Violent crime is accentuated by the availability of firearms. According to the police service Central Firearms Registry, 3.5m South Africans legally possess 4.2m firearms, and it is estimated that a similar number of illicit firearms are circulating in the country…

Murder with a firearm increased to 49% of all murders in 1999, while robbery with a firearm increased to 85% of all serious robberies.”

Crime went on a downward curve from 1994, but after 1998 began rising to a peak in 2000/01, a trend that was arrested in 2001/02 with a slight drop in reported crime. Those who live in Johannesburg are most likely to be attacked by a criminal, with 34% of citizens reporting assaults, sexual offences and violent robberies from 1992 to 1996 and 30% in 2000.

While violent crime appears to have slightly eased, fear has increased in Johannesburg. “In 1992, 15% (of residents) felt very safe walking in their residential areas while 44% felt very unsafe. In 2000, the feeling safe category decreased to 9% while (those who felt) unsafe increased to 53%.” But too, more people living in Johannesburg believed the police are doing a better job.

In the rest of the country burglary and robbery are the most oft-reported crimes. “While the wealthy run the risk of becoming the victims of property crime, the poor are much more likely to become the victims of violent crime (and) property crime.” Even thought the budgets for police, courts and prison have risen considerably since 1994, the report notes that little has gone to crime fighting, most has gone into restructuring those departments.

And a lack of focus in fighting organized crime – 12 government institutions try and do this – is leading to organized crime increasing.

The prison system, the report suggests, does more to promote injustice than to ensure it is served. “In 2001, the country’s 238 prisons, designed to hold 105 000 people were housing 176 000 inmates and 33 093 officials were employed to manage the prison population.”

Severe overcrowding and high rates of HIV are challenges, but the situation also “undermine(s) the rights of those accused and convicted of a crime who are held in custody and (has) serious negative effects on the implementation of rehabilitation programmes.”

On average an accused can spend 139 days in jail waiting for his or her trial to be completed, “some suspects are held in prison awaiting sentence for over four months and in some cases over several years.”

Poverty is a significant reason why many cannot access justice. “In June 2001, 17 589 (34%) unsentenced prisoners were being held because they could not afford to pay bail. Over 11 000 of those had bail set at less than R1 000.” The high rates of overcrowding facilitate the spread of disease especially tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. “This problem is highlighted by the substantial number of “natural” deaths in prisons since 1995. Between 1995 and 2000, the number of natural deaths increased by 484%. According to post-mortems conducted most of these deaths are believed to have been the result of HIV/AIDS.”

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