The Most Common Crimes in South Africa

In recent weeks, crime has been on every South African’s mind, as protests broke out all over the country following yet another attention-grabbing act of violence.

Crime seems to be here to stay, and you need to make sure that you have done everything possible to ensure that you, your family and your business stay safe from criminals. Onguard works to create durable, high-quality security products which can be used by security companies to up their service while some of our products such as our gate systems and access control systems can be used both in the home and in businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our products are cutting edge technology and are super easy to use. They are also more than capable of instantly improving the overall security of any premises.

Each year, the South African Police Service releases a list of the latest crime statistics and over the years, the more common crimes have become glaringly obvious. The most common type of crime to affect South Africans of all kinds, regardless of their income group or race, is theft and housebreaking in particular. In 2018, an average of 625 house breakings happened EVERY DAY!

When you take into consideration that this means there are over 200 000 house breakings in a year, there is a very real chance that one year, your home might be included in those statistics. If you report the crime that is. A vast number of these crimes is simply never reported, as many South Africans do not see reporting the crime as worthwhile. Talk to anyone and they’ll probably say that they wouldn’t report this kind of crime unless they were claiming from their insurance.

While a housebreaking is incredibly traumatic as it is an invasion of your privacy and sometimes involves more than a robbery, the other crimes that made it onto the list are both worrying and enough to make you think twice about your current security set up.

In no particular order these are some of the common crimes to have made the list:

• Drug-related crime
• Assault with intent to do bodily harm
• Common assault
• Theft out of a motor vehicle
• Driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol
• Sexual offences of all kinds
• Shoplifting
• Commercial crime
• Truck hijacking
• Cash in transit robbery
• Murder
• Attempted murder
• Illegal possession of a firearm or ammunition
• Stock theft
• Hijacking

Currently, there are around 1140 police stations in South Africa. Crimes are generally reported at the station closest to where the crime was committed. Sometimes, police have to cover a wide range of places which can include numerous small towns. This can occasionally distort crime figures for the various areas, but by and large, the figures for each area are a very good indication of the crimes most likely to occur in that place.

You can’t necessarily avoid crime but you can be prepared and you can have your house or business set up in such a way that criminals are less likely to take a chance.