When it comes to provinces, the Northern Cape leads the pack at 52.6% in being satisfied with police performance after a housebreaking, followed by Western Cape at 49.3%.
This is according to the latest findings of Stats SA’s Victims of Crime Survey, which was released on Thursday.
A total of 30 000 households across the country took part in the research. The results show that household satisfaction with the police has decreased over the past five years, from 64.2% of respondents in 2011, to 57.3% in 2016/17.
Of the households that had been burgled in the past financial year, only 38% were satisfied with the police’s handling of their cases.
While public confidence in the police has declined in recent years, more white households that had fallen victim to housebreaking were satisfied with police performance than their black counterparts.
Gauteng Community Policing Forum board deputy chairperson Vernon Smith attributed an overall decline in confidence in police to the fact that they had too few vehicles and too few officers.
He also said suburbs where white families predominated were not as highly populated as townships and informal settlements, where more crime could be expected.
“Here there is lawlessness to an extent that police are afraid to go in at times. There are likely to be more victims in such areas and, given the challenges cited earlier, police may not have everything they need in abundance to fight the crime,”
Victims of Crime Survey 2016/17 – Stats SA
Crime is going down, but we are not feeling any safer – STATS SA
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