Acting Police Minister Professor Firoz Cachalia released the crime statistics for the period April to June 2026 in Pretoria on Friday.
Image: Bheki Radebe
The SAPS has recorded notable decreases in several of the country's most serious contact crimes between April and June 2026.
Firoz Cachalia, Acting Minister of Police, released the statistics on Friday in Pretoria.
He said the SAPS have also seen significant reductions in crimes such as, murder, carjacking, residential robberies, business robberies and cash-in-transit robberies.
“These are the crimes that create fear in our communities. Many are committed by organised, heavily armed criminal groups that operate with planning and sophistication,” he said.
Murder decreased by 5.9%, from 5 770 to 5 427 cases. "This represents 343 fewer murders compared to the same period last year, marking yet another consecutive quarter in which this crime has shown a downward trajectory."
Sexual offences declined from 11 630 to 11 532 (-98); carjacking from 4 657 to 3 811 (-846); robbery at residential premises declined from 5 360 to 4 416 (-944), while robbery at non-residential premises declined from 3 099 to 2 733 (-366). Robbery with aggravating circumstances declined from 31 475 to 26 839 (-4.636).
Despite the gains, Cachalia cautioned that crime levels remain unacceptably high. South Africa recorded an average of 58 murders a day during the previous quarter.
“These are the crimes that create fear in our communities. Many are committed by organised, heavily armed criminal groups that operate with planning and sophistication. Others are interpersonal crimes, perpetrated by people known to their victims, reflecting deeper challenges within our social fabric and the breakdown of trust and relationships in communities,” Cachalia said.
Cachalia said we are also concerned about crime categories that have increased during the reporting period, particularly those affecting women, children, and other vulnerable members of society. Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) continues to demand urgent attention from every sector of society.
Cachalia said a relatively small number of policing precincts account for a disproportionate amount of violent crime. He said the SAPS will prioritise interventions in 140 high-crime police station precincts across the country. These stations will receive targeted operational support, enhanced oversight and improved resource allocation, among other interventions.
“This reinforces our commitment to deploying resources where they are needed most and ensuring that operational decisions are increasingly driven by crime intelligence and evidence rather than assumptions. These statistics therefore tell us two important things simultaneously: progress is possible, but our work is far from complete,” he said.
Cachalia said seeing sustained declines across these categories demonstrates that intelligence-led policing, targeted operations and improved collaboration between law enforcement agencies are beginning to have an impact, while also underscoring the importance of broader social interventions to address the root causes of violence.
Cachalia said that alcohol is a primary driver of violence in this country. The pattern, he said, is consistent and it is depressingly predictable.
“Violence concentrates over weekends. It concentrates at night. It concentrates in and around liquor outlets, many of them unlicensed and operating without any regard for regulation. A substantial proportion of our murders and serious assaults involve people who were drinking, killing or injuring people they knew, often over trivial arguments,” Cachalia said.
He added that a meaningful portion of our murder rate is not the work of organised criminals or armed robbers.
“It is ordinary people, drunk, with access to a weapon. We cannot arrest our way out of that. It requires enforcement of liquor licensing, it requires by-law enforcement by municipalities, and it requires an honest national conversation about the place of alcohol in our society,” Cachalia said.
Cachalia said creating safer communities requires an all-of-society approach. The government alone cannot defeat crime. The police cannot be on every street corner, in every neighbourhood or inside every home. Sustainable crime prevention depends on active partnerships between law enforcement and the communities we serve.
He said Community Policing Forums, neighbourhood watches, traditional leaders, faith-based organisations, business, civil society and ordinary residents all have an indispensable role to play.
“The recent arrests following the tragic shootings in Reiger Park demonstrate exactly what is possible when communities work with the police. Information provided by members of the public, together with swift investigative work by SAPS, enabled law enforcement to move quickly against those responsible. This is the type of partnership we seek to strengthen across the country,” Cachalia said.
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