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 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.
He said other crimes are interpersonal, often committed by people known to their victims. They reflect deeper challenges in the social fabric and a breakdown of trust and relationships in communities. Cachalia said a relatively small number of policing precincts account for a disproportionate amount of violent crime.
“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 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.
He said the month of August is celebrated as Women’s Month. Cachalia said the protection of women, children, and other vulnerable persons remains a national policing priority requiring sustained investment and prevention, victim support, investigation and prosecution.
Cachalia said among the key resolutions adopted was the need to strengthen coordination between national, provincial and local government, enhance intelligence capabilities, improve detective services, accelerate the fight against organised crime, extortion, illegal mining and gang-related violence, and ensure that resources are directed towards identified crime hotspots.
“Crime cannot be addressed in silos. Every sphere of government has a role to play, and we must all be aligned behind a common objective,” Cachalia said.
Cachalia 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.
“The senior leadership of the SAPS interrogates the crime picture every Monday, looking at shifts and changes that can inform whether the way we are using resources is having an impact or not. That process has made one thing unmistakably clear,” he said.
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 our joint operations with the South African National Defence Force have continued through this quarter. "These operations will continue. So will our work against organised crime — against extortion syndicates, against kidnapping networks, against illegal mining, and against gangsterism in the areas where it has effectively replaced the state,” Cachalia said.
He said the reset agenda is about rebuilding a modern, professional and community-centred police service that is intelligence-driven, ethical, responsive and accountable. He said the SAPS is accelerating its modernisation agenda by embracing technology as a force multiplier to improve crime prevention, investigation and service delivery.
Cachalia said that through its partnership with Business Against Crime South Africa, the SAPS is advancing a modernisation project aimed at strengthening digital capabilities at station level, improving operational efficiency and equipping members with technology that enables smarter, more responsive policing.
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.
Cachalia explained that September is observed as Police Safety Month.
“We are reminded that policing remains one of the most dangerous professions in our country. Every police officer who leaves home to report for duty accepts risks that most South Africans will never fully appreciate,” he said.
Cachalia said the recent killing of two members of the Anti-Gang Unit in Reiger Park has once again reminded us of the dangers faced daily by our law enforcement officers.
Cachalia said law enforcement agencies will investigate politically related crime, bring those responsible to justice, and work with all stakeholders to ensure that the electoral environment is safe, secure and conducive to free and fair democratic participation.
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