Less than 40% of criminal cases are solved in South Africa

Of the roughly 21.5 million criminal dockets that have been opened over the past ten years, less than half have been solved.

This is according to Minister of Police Firoz Cachalia, who was responding to a written question from Build One South Africa (BOSA) Member of Parliament Mmusi Maimane.

Cachalia revealed that 21,497,020 dockets were opened by the South African Police Services (SAPS) between the 2015/16 financial year and 2024/25.

Of these, only 8,050,088 (37%) dockets were solved, meaning that more than 13.4 million of the dockets remain unsolved.

The largest portion of criminal dockets was registered in 2015/16, at 2.39 million, followed by 2016/17, at 2.36 million. Dockets consistently decreased until 2020/21, when they began to rise again. They have since fluctuated above 2 million.

Gauteng consistently registered the highest number of criminal dockets, followed by the Western Cape. However, given that the latter’s population size is less than half that of Gauteng, its rate of dockets per capita is significantly higher.

Despite these numbers, police stations across the country have never collectively solved more than 1 million cases in a year.

However, despite having a smaller population size, the Western Cape consistently solved more cases than Gauteng, except in the 2020/21 financial year.

On the other hand, the number of case dockets officially closed without resolution has consistently remained above 1 million every year across the decade.

This hit a high point in 2018/19 when 1.47 million criminal dockets were officially closed. However, it recently hit a low of 1.15 million.

Cachalia pointed out that these annual amounts cannot be totalled across the ten years as it risks double-counting. This is also true for cases still under investigation.

The number of dockets that have remained open and under investigation at the end of every year has consistently been above 1.5 million for the ten-year period, except for 2022/23, when it was 1.4 million.

As of the 2024/25 financial year, there were 1.9 million criminal dockets still open and under investigation.

Police severely under-resourced

Recent figures have shown that many of South Africa’s crime hotspots are critically understaffed.

Data released by Cachalia shows that only eight of the 35 police departments in contact crime hotspots have seen an increase in staff capacity since the 2020/21 financial year.

The Western Cape has eight of the top 35 stations. Of these, only one has seen an increase in staff capacity over the past five years – Harare. This increased from 104% in 2020/21 to 123% in 2024/25.

On the other hand, Nyanga, which is the police precinct with one of the highest murder rates in the country, saw its capacity drop from 105% to 83%.

According to the Institute for Security Studies, the area had a murder rate of 157 per 100,000 people for the 2023/24 year.

However, Nyanga is not the only police department to drop below its granted capacity. Only the Mitchells Plain and Cape Town Central departments were not at capacity in 2020/21, at 91% and 88% respectively.

The rest – Delft, Khayelitsha, Kraaifontein, and Mfuleni – have all seen a 10 percentage point drop in capacity over the five years.

The most significant exodus of officers occurred at the Delft Police Station, where the capacity dropped from 118% to 84% over the five years.

This is despite the Western Cape police spokesperson, Andre Traut, stating that the South African Police Service (SAPS) is adequately resourced to tackle the ongoing gang-related and other violent crime in the province.

“We have the situation under control and have the necessary resources to curb the crime in the Western Cape,” Traut said in an interview on 13 November 2025.

“We are deploying high numbers of police officers on the streets through numerous crime prevention operations, including Operation Shanela II and Operation Lockdown III, to curb the violence,” Traut said

Nearly two-thirds of South Africans don’t trust the police

A new report from the Institute for Security Studies has warned that corruption across the South African Police Service (SAPS), metro police, and traffic authorities has become “an organisational and societal problem” requiring urgent political and institutional action.

The authors of the report, leading policing and governance researchers David Bruce and Gareth Newham, say corruption has become so deeply embedded that restoring integrity in policing is now a matter of national urgency.

The researchers highlight the alarming public perception of police misconduct.

The Human Sciences Research Council’s data shows trust in the police has remained “exceptionally low”, with only 22% of South Africans expressing trust in SAPS in 2022, 2023 and 2024/25.

Meanwhile, 62% reported having no trust at all. Citing the 2022 Afrobarometer survey, the authors note that six in 10 citizens (61%) say that ‘most’ or ‘all’ police are corrupt,” a reflection of a “severe breakdown in trust”.

“Public trust in the police is necessary for community cooperation and, therefore, for police to reduce crime,” said Bruce and Newham, warning that the trust deficit directly undermines policing effectiveness.