Crime · South Africa

South Africa's murder rate more than halved between 1994/95 and 2011/12 and mostly rose until 2022/23, before falling in 2024/25

1 November 2026 · 9-minute read

The South African Police Service (SAPS) recorded 66,9 murders for every 100 000 people in 1994/95 and 30,9 in 2011/12, a fall of 54%. On one consistent population series from Stats SA, the rate then rose from 30,0 in 2011/12 to 45,4 in 2022/23. SAPS's own rate was 39,1 in 2024/25, the latest year with annual figures, down from 44,3 the year before. Its quarterly releases for 2025/26 add up to 23 096 murders, a provisional total 9,2% below the same quarters of 2024/25 as restated in those releases.

All the crime figures here are recorded crime: offences reported to the police or found by them, counted by SAPS for financial years that run from April to March. Because some offences are reported far less often than others, and the share reported can change from year to year, a fall in a SAPS count does not always mean a fall in crime. SAPS counts charges, not case dockets: a murder count is the number of people killed, so one attack with four victims adds four, while a burglary counts once however many items are taken. Murder is the most completely recorded crime. In Stats SA's latest victims survey, 94,0% of households in which a member had been murdered said the murder was reported to the police.

The murder rate fell until 2011/12 and has been higher since

The line shows SAPS's own published murder rates. It has a gap at 2014/15, the one year for which SAPS published a count but no rate, and the rates on either side of the gap use different population estimates. The dashed line divides the same counts by one consistent population series from Stats SA, and follows a similar path.

Source: SAPS annual crime statistics, 2004, 2013, 2014 and 2015 releases (from the Internet Archive) and the 2024/25 annual figures, pages 9 and 18; dashed line, Stats SA, Mid-year population estimates 2026, P0302 (released 30 July 2026).

Counts to 2004/05 and all rates to 2013/14 are from the 2004, 2013 and 2014 releases; counts for 2005/06 to 2014/15 from the 2015 release, a new extraction; 2015/16 on from the 2024/25 figures (online copy dated 22 May 2026). Downloaded 1 November 2026.

The highest rate in the series is 67,9, in 1995/96. By 2011/12 the count had fallen to 15 554 murders, and the rate to 30,9. The count then rose in most years up to 2023/24, when it reached 27 621, 77,6% more than in 2011/12. The population grew too, so the rate rose by less. On Stats SA's consistent population series it went from 30,0 in 2011/12 to 45,4 in 2022/23, a rise of 51,4%, with a dip in 2020/21, the year of the strictest COVID-19 lockdown rules.

In 2024/25 SAPS recorded 24 692 murders, 10,6% fewer than the year before.

Two cautions apply to the line. SAPS's 2015 release revised the murder counts for 2005/06 to 2013/14 down by between 45 and 96 a year, but the rates SAPS had already published for those years were worked out on the earlier counts. And SAPS has given different totals for 2024/25 in different publications: 24 692 in the annual release, and 25 423 when the four 2025/26 quarterly releases list the same quarters a year earlier. Against the annual figure, the provisional 2025/26 total of 23 096 would be 6,5% lower rather than 9,2%. SAPS had not published annual figures for 2025/26 on its crime statistics page when we checked on 1 November 2026, so the chart stops at 2024/25. The latest quarterly release, for April to June 2026 and published on 28 August 2026, records 5 427 murders, 5,9% fewer than the 5 770 in the same quarter of 2025.

Recorded contact crime per person changed little in 10 years, while recorded property crime almost halved

SAPS groups violent crimes against people, from assault to murder and robbery, as contact crime, and burglary, vehicle theft and stock theft as property-related crime. The next chart puts both on a per-person basis for the 10 years in SAPS's latest annual release.

Source: SAPS, Police recorded crime statistics, 2024/25 financial year, annual figures, workbook (released by SAPS; online copy dated 22 May 2026); Stats SA, Mid-year population estimates 2026, P0302 (released 30 July 2026).

Contact crime was 1 129 per 100 000 people in 2015/16 and 1 057 in 2024/25. Property-related crime fell from 985 to 519. Both dropped sharply in 2020/21; contact crime then rose back close to its earlier level, while property crime stayed near its 2020/21 level and then fell further. The property figures need particular care, because fewer than half of housebreakings are reported to the police.

Recorded kidnappings more than tripled, and recorded burglaries at homes fell by almost half

This chart compares the counts in 2015/16 and 2024/25 for each of the 17 crimes SAPS calls community-reported serious crimes, plus kidnapping and four of the robbery subcategories SAPS reports separately. The dashed line marks population growth over the same years, 12,3%. A crime to the left of that line became less common per person.

Source: SAPS, Police recorded crime statistics, 2024/25 financial year, annual figures, workbook (released by SAPS; online copy dated 22 May 2026); population growth from Stats SA, Mid-year population estimates 2026, P0302 (released 30 July 2026).

"Assault (GBH)": assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm. "Other theft": SAPS's "all theft not mentioned elsewhere".

Recorded kidnappings went from 5 013 in 2015/16 to 16 901 in 2024/25. Gauteng, home to 25,4% of the population, had 9 155 of the 2024/25 cases, or 54,2%. SAPS's annual tables give a single total, so they can't show how many cases were kidnappings for ransom and how many happened during other crimes, such as carjackings. Commercial crime, which covers fraud and similar offences and depends heavily on what banks and businesses report, roughly doubled, from 69 917 to 142 160. Attempted murder rose by 52,4%, faster than murder at 32,2%.

At the other end, recorded burglary at homes fell from 250 606 to 138 874, a fall of 44,6%, and theft from vehicles fell by 43,6%. Cash-in-transit robbery was almost unchanged over the full period, at 137 and 140, but these small counts move a lot from year to year: SAPS recorded 211 in 2023/24.

The Eastern Cape, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal had the highest murder rates in every year from 2015/16 to 2024/25

SAPS is a national police service, and these rates count recorded murders per person; they do not measure how a provincial or municipal government performs. Each small chart shows one province's murder rate on the same scale, ordered from the highest rate in 2024/25 to the lowest.

The four provinces with the most murders followed a similar path, rising to a peak in 2022/23 or 2023/24 and then falling. The Eastern Cape went from 52,8 in 2015/16 to a peak of 73,6 in 2022/23 and was at 66,9 in 2024/25. In the Western Cape the figures were 50,0, a peak of 61,7 in 2023/24, and 58,4. KwaZulu-Natal went from 35,9 to a peak of 58,9 in 2022/23 and was at 44,8, and Gauteng from 29,4 to a peak of 42,7 in 2023/24 and 37,9.

SAPS publishes its own provincial rates for 2024/25. They differ from these by up to 9,2%, in Gauteng's case (34,7 against 37,9), because SAPS used an earlier set of population estimates, but the nine provinces rank in the same order on both.

SAPS says drug, drunk-driving and firearm cases depend on police deployment

SAPS counts four offences as "crime detected as a result of police action": illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, drug-related crime, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and sexual offences found this way. Its annual release describes these as "largely dependent on the deployment of law enforcement personnel". Higher counts can reflect more policing as well as more offending, so these counts are not a measure of how much drug use or drunk driving there is.

Source: SAPS, Police recorded crime statistics, 2024/25 financial year, annual figures, workbook and release, page 86 (released by SAPS; online copy dated 22 May 2026).

Drug-related crime peaked at 323 547 cases in 2017/18, fell to 121 359 in 2020/21 and had climbed back to 192 783 by 2024/25. The fall began in 2018/19, the year in which the Constitutional Court ruled that adults' private use and cultivation of cannabis is not a crime (Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development v Prince, 18 September 2018). SAPS's figures can't show whether the ruling, changes in police deployment or something else explains the change. Drunk and drugged driving cases were 94 273 in 2019/20 and 35 860 in 2020/21, the first year of COVID-19 lockdown rules, and 63 752 in 2024/25. Illegal firearm cases moved within a narrower range, from 14 772 in 2015/16 to 15 758 in 2024/25.

Fewer than half of housebreakings and street robberies were reported to the police

Stats SA's Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey visits a sample of about 33 000 dwellings and asks the people living there whether they were victims of crime and whether they told the police. The latest round was carried out from April 2025 to March 2026, and each person is asked about the 12 months before their interview.

Source: Stats SA, Victims of Crime: Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey 2025/26, P0341, tables 8 to 37 (released 1 September 2026).

Murder and sexual offences against household members were reported most often, followed by crimes involving a vehicle: 77,3% of hijacking victims and 69,4% of households hit by vehicle theft told the police. Fewer than half of housebreakings (48,2%) and street robberies (41,7%) were reported. Theft of personal property (37,3%) and psychological violence (30,7%) were among the least reported. Stats SA notes that the survey and SAPS define some crimes differently; SAPS vehicle theft includes motorcycles, for example, and the survey's does not.

The survey also gives a rough check on the fall in recorded burglary. SAPS recorded 220 865 burglaries at homes in 2018/19 and 138 874 in 2024/25, 37,1% fewer. In the survey, 5,8% of households said they had suffered a housebreaking in the 12 months before their interview in 2018/19, 5,7% in 2024/25 and 5,3% in 2025/26. The population grew over those years, so a steady share does not point to fewer households affected. The survey periods don't line up exactly with SAPS's financial years, and a survey estimate has a margin of error, but the survey does not show a fall of anything like the size of the one in the police figures.

Slightly more people felt safe walking alone after dark in 2025/26 than in 2018/19

In 2025/26, 37,9% of people aged 16 and older said they felt very or fairly safe walking alone in their area after dark, against 35,1% in 2018/19. During the day the share was 80,7%, against 82,8% in 2018/19.

SAPS's next quarterly release is scheduled for 20 November 2026

SAPS's calendar puts the release for July to September 2026 on 20 November 2026 at 12:00, and the one for October to December 2026 on 19 February 2027. The first-quarter release for 2026/27 was postponed by a week, so these dates can move. When SAPS publishes annual figures for 2025/26, they will replace the provisional quarterly total used here and may revise earlier years.

Source: SAPS, Pre-release crime statistics release calendar, 2026/2027 financial year, signed 19 June 2026; SAPS, letter postponing the first-quarter release from 21 to 28 August 2026, dated 20 August 2026. The cleaned data and a list of sources are kept with the site's code.