While South Africa saw murder rates drop by 8.7%, firearms remain the primary weapon used in these killings. 

This was revealed by Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia today when he presented the crime statistics for the third quarter of 2025/2026, for the period October 1 to December 31.  

In his address, Cachalia said the decision to publicly release crime statistics every quarter was a demonstration of the government’s commitment to transparency and accountability. 

National trends 

He said the most violent crime categories included murder, rape and robbery, property-related crimes like theft and burglary, which continue to decrease but remain at unacceptably high levels. 

“After more than a decade of annual increases, murder – our most accurate crime statistic – started decreasing in the first quarter of 2023 to 2024. This trend has continued throughout this year, with this quarter showing an 8.7% decrease or 602 fewer lives lost,” he said.  

Cachalia explained that the statistics meant that over the past two years, the number of murders for the period October 1 to December 31 had dropped by 17.6% or 1 359 fewer murders. 

“Total contact crime, made up of all categories of violent crime, started to decrease in the third quarter of 2024–2025. During this quarter, total violent crime decreased again by 6.7% or 12 682 fewer cases reported to the SAPS when compared with the same quarter last year,” he said.  

He further stated that over the past two years, total violent crime for this quarter was down by 8.3% or 15 763 fewer cases.  

“This trend may well be attributable to enhanced policing operations,” said Cachalia. 

Crime remains high 

Despite the national trends, Cachalia said the levels of crime remain unacceptably high.  

Providing examples, he said that while they have seen double-digit reductions in murder in five provinces, namely KZN, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State and the North West, much smaller decreases were recorded in the Western and Eastern Cape, with slight increases recorded in Limpopo and the Northern Cape.  

“And out of the 30 highest murder precincts, decreases were recorded in only 15 of them. The killings relating to gang violence in the Eastern and Western Cape in particular remain worrisomely high,” Cachalia said. 

Murder of police officials 

Cachalia raised concerns about the increase in the murder of police officers. 

“Almost 80% of the 23 police officials who lost their lives were off-duty. This is an issue that I will ask SAPS management to look into so that we can try and prevent these deaths from happening,” he said. 

Firearms 

He said firearms remain the single largest weapon driving murder, robbery and organised crime in our country.  

Looking at gender-based violence and femicide (GBV+F), Cachalia said police will intensify efforts to deal with the crimes.  

“We are taking steps to strengthen the policing approach to addressing GBV+F and other forms of violence. For example, the SAPS has allocated an additional 999 police members to the detective services over the past year,” he said.  

Tackling organised crime 

Cachalia added that most organised crime is not recorded in the crime statistics because it is usually not reported to the police. 

He said the impact of these crimes, however, is severely damaging to the country.  

Police now intend to take a ‘two simultaneous approaches’ when dealing with organised crime.  

“Firstly, we must identify those involved through vetting and lifestyle audits of our top ranks,” he said.  

He added that the SAPS top management echelon must consist only of experienced commanders of unquestionable integrity.  

“We must establish an organisational culture characterised by professionalism, integrity and accountability throughout the organisation,” said Cachalia. 

The short-term plan to tackle organised crime, where lives and livelihoods are threatened through gang violence and illegal mining, involves bolstering the anti-gang units, deploying other specialised policing units and the defence force. 

Working with communities 

He said they will also be implementing the Integrated Crime and Violence Strategy (ICVPS). This will involve social departments that will work with police to mitigate the factors that drive crime and violence, so they can be prevented from happening.

A meeting will be held on March 6 with the respective premiers to ensure the ICVPS is implemented in high-crime precincts. 

He said communities will also be supported at their local level with programmes to improve public safety. 

“We will be looking at re-invigorating community-policing by establishing a national community-patroller programme that will run in each province,” he said. 

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