How Bad Is South Africa's Murder Rate? GroundUp_News: SouthAfrica
The number of murders this past year may be the highest on record. The previous highest is 1995/6 .There's currently a 4 to 5% chance that your cause of death in South Africa will be murder.by the Institute of Security Studies, South Africa now has the second highest murder rate in the world. Only Jamaica is worse. But note that many countries cannot measure their murder rate accurately. Also the number of deaths by violence in war zones are disputed and complicate things.
While murders dropped appreciably during the first year of Covid, especially during the hard lockdowns, the number of murders in 2020/21 still exceeded 2016/17. Since Bheki Cele became Minister of Police in 2018, the murder rate has increased from 36 to 46 per 100,000. In the half-decade before he took this position the situation was already deteriorating., from about 6 per 100,000 to 5.4 per 100,000, while the South African homicide rate increased dramatically over this period.
Why has the murder rate got worse? David Bruce, a widely respected researcher on violence, policing and public security, points to several possible causes: declining police numbers, the proliferation of firearms and violent organised crime. He also suggests that the worsening economy could be contributing to increased violent crime."This impact is most strongly concentrated in the four most populous provinces," he told GroundUp.
Number of murders in the Western Cape, April 2012 to March 2023, and the corresponding murder rate . Sources: SAPS and Thembisa
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