Crime statistics do not belong to the government, academics,
specialists, or the press. They are ours: we experience and report
crimes and have a right to access and understand their official record.
It should not take any particular expertise to get a grasp on what we
should make of the figures and graphs that the South African Police
Service produces every year.
Yet crime, its measurement and control, are as much political matters as
they are technocratic. While there is much that remains open to
interpretation and discussion, there are some things that we should all
be able to agree on, based on a sober reading of the evidence. As crime
is a serious issue in South Africa, knowing what the official sources
say is critical for productive debates on what we can do to make our
country safer.
A Citizen's Guide to Crime Trends in South Africa provides a basis on
which to understand the statistics in a manner that is accessible to the
general public. Each chapter challenges a set of oft-repeated
assumptions about how bad crime is, where it occurs, and who its victims
are. It also demonstrates how and why crime statistics need to be
matched with other forms of research, including criminal justice data,
in order to produce a fuller account of what we are faced with.
