ISS expert says violent crime is declining in South Africa
In Cape Town, South Africa, Lizette Lancaster, head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said the country is once again reducing violent crime, although these results remain fragile. She said this on September 11 at The Gathering 2026 conference, Daily Maverick reports.
According to Lancaster, South Africa's murder rate has decreased significantly compared with peak figures before the establishment of democracy. Over the past two years, a steady decline in most serious violent crimes has also been recorded after a sharp increase that began after 2011.
Uneven distribution of violence
At the same time, South Africa remains, in the expert's assessment, a country with a very high level of violence: its murder rate is approximately seven times higher than the global average and nearly four times higher than the African average. Cases of attempted murder are increasing, largely linked to firearm-related crimes, as are commercial and digital crimes. Over the past decade, the number of kidnappings has quadrupled.
Violence is heavily concentrated in specific areas: around half of all murders occur in approximately 12% of police stations, mainly in metropolitan areas. In 2024/25, Tshwane had the lowest murder rate among major cities, at 17 per 100,000 people, while Nelson Mandela Bay recorded 71 per 100,000.
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Weapons, gangs and police work
Lancaster linked organized crime to a long history of social exclusion, forced removals and economic marginalization. According to her, criminal networks now intersect with illicit drug and arms trafficking, extortion, activity in the taxi and construction sectors, contract killings, and politically connected organized crime.
The expert noted that the rate of identifying those responsible for murders has fallen from approximately 31% in 2011 to just over 10% today. Trust in the police, according to the data she cited, declined from about 40% in the late 1990s to approximately 22%. She called for the seizure of illegal weapons, specialized investigations targeting organized criminal networks, the restoration of the capacity of the criminal justice and anti-corruption systems, and the assessment of the effectiveness of prevention measures.
Lancaster stressed that violence can be prevented and that this process begins with everyone.
