afrol News, 9 May - It has been found out that most South Africans believed that crime was still on the increase, despite the fact that crime levels were lower, a survey released by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) has disclosed.

A Senior ISS Research Fellow, Antoinette Louw, told a Pretoria seminar that although South Africa's crime levels were lower since 1998 and 2003, majority of the 4,500 people surveyed thought crime, in particular, house-breaking was on the increase. Consequently, most people lacked confidence in the security forces.

"Since 1998, house-breaking and burglary has been the most common crimes that South Africans have report," Louw said.

The 2007 national victim survey showed that 81% of people reported house-breaking incidents to the police, compared to the 57% in 2003 survey.

She said the survey showed that the public feared house-breaking the most. "I think that is our main area of concern."

Crime perception differs in different communities, with 85% of Indians, 63% of whites, 57% of coloureds and 54% of blacks believed crime was escalating.

Only 22% of whites thought crime had decreased in the past four years.

"Indian respondents tend to be much more fearful, much more concerned about crime and more critical of government," Louw said.

In the latest survey, 57% believed crime had increased, compared to 53% in the 2003 survey.

"The interesting thing about all the perception data is that even though we know that crime has gone down, most South Africans still think crime is going up, levels of public confidence are not good," she said disclosing that residents of Gauteng became the most negative about crime.

The percentage of punitive response to crime was increased from 15% in 2003 to 34% in 2007.

The public satisfaction on the police has dropped from 52% in 2003 to 49% in 2007.

Also 60% of the people were found to have done nothing to protect themselves against crime.

But the ISS Senior Researcher, Johan Burger, described the increasing street robbery [70%] as the "real challenge" in the country. Alarming increase in ATM attacks, particularly in townships has been noted.

The number of people who paid traffice offences bribes to government officials had shot up from 27% to 32%.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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