More than two million households across South Africa have experienced burglaries, according to statistics released by the Statistician-General of South Africa, Risenga Maluleke, on Tuesday.
MORE than two million households across South Africa have experienced burglaries, according to statistics released by the Statistician-General of South Africa, Risenga Maluleke, in Pretoria on Tuesday.
“Around 2.2 million households experienced housebreaking or burglary during the past five years. The experience of housebreaking has increased by 14% from the previous year,” Maluleke said at Statistics SA’s ISIbalo House in Salvokop, Pretoria.
“We are looking at the previous five years, we will also look into the [past] 12 months, but it is very critical that we look at what happened in the past five years because there are so many experiences there.”
Maluleke was releasing the results of the Victims of Crime report from the Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey (GPSJS) 2021/22 at a media briefing.
The report covers the experience of specific types of crime by households and individuals, the incidences, and the reporting of crime. This includes housebreaking, theft of personal property, assault, vehicle hijacking and home robbery, among others.
Unlike the SAPS crime statistics, which are based on crimes reported at police stations, Maluleke said his survey is based on visiting households across South Africa and asking residents about their experiences in line with general safety.
In 2021/22, about 983 000 households in South Africa experienced housebreaking/burglary. This represents 5.4 % of households in South Africa.
“When we go further, we are looking at an increase. We are saying households that experienced housebreaking increased by 21.5% in the 2021/22 period – the past 12 months. Home robbery [when house occupants are present] was 155,000 in contrast to housebreaking, when people are not at home,” said Maluleke.
The highest proportion of households which experienced housebreaking are in KwaZulu-Natal, with 7.9% of the total, whereas Limpopo experienced the lowest with 3.8%.
