Few arrests for housebreaking and home robbery: StatsSA

An arrest is made in only one out of every five reported cases of housebreaking or home robbery.

In addition‚ only one in five people arrested for housebreaking is convicted and one in three people who arrested for home robbery is convicted.

These are the findings by Statistics South Africa in its Crime Statistics Series Volume 4‚ which explored the extent of and circumstances surrounding housebreaking and home robbery.

It recommended that government should speed up the implementation of the National Development Plan’s goal of eliminating crime by 2030.

StatsSA also suggested measures that could mitigate crime in the country.

These included encouraging the creation of and participation in community crime prevention forums‚ increasing the number of police stations to bring them closer to the people and increasing the police response times.

The report found that an estimated 727‚000 households experienced housebreaking in 2015/16 and a further 171‚000 households were victims of home robbery.

This meant 50.1% of all crimes experienced by households were housebreaking‚ with home robberies a close second at 11.9%.

Other forms of crime facing households included theft out of motor vehicles (10.4%) and theft of livestock and other animals (8.6%). Murder was the least common type of crime experienced by households in 2015/16 at 0.9%.

The report found that night time was the preferable time for housebreaking and home robbery where over 49% and 65% of the incidents‚ respectively‚ took place at night.

For both housebreaking and house robbery‚ electrical equipment was the most targeted item. Jewellery‚ money and cellphones were the most common items stolen after electrical equipment in incidents of both housebreaking and home robbery.

It also found that absence of community crime prevention forums‚ long distances to police stations and lengthy police response times to emergency calls were factors that increased the odds of housebreaking.

“The implication of this finding is that promotion of community crime prevention forums‚ building more police stations closer to the people and improving police response times are some of the interventions that could help reduce housebreaking‚” the report said.

It also found that people were increasingly becoming more afraid to walk alone in their neighbourhoods than they were five years ago.

The survey showed that the proportion of households that felt safe walking alone in their neighbourhoods during the day had declined from 89.2% in 2011to 83.7% in 2015/16.

It also showed that households that felt safe walking alone in their neighbourhoods at night declined from 36.9% in 2011 to 30.7% in 2015/2016.