South Africa recorded another decline in murders during the third quarter of the 2025/26 financial year, but the Acting Minister of Police, Firoz Cachalia, has warned that the country remains trapped in a cycle of deadly violence that continues to claim thousands of lives.
Cachalia was speaking on Friday during the presentation of the third quarter crime statistics in Pretoria. He struck a careful balance between acknowledging progress and sounding the alarm about the scale of bloodshed.
“After more than a decade of annual increases, murder, our most accurate crime statistic, started decreasing in the first quarter of 2023-24. This trend has continued throughout this year. With this quarter showing an 8,7% decrease or 602 fewer lives lost,” Cachalia said.
Broader downward trajectory
He said the decline was part of a broader downward trajectory.
“This means that over the past two years, the number of murders for the quarter three period had dropped by 17,6% or 1, 359 fewer murders.”
The latest statistics, covering the period from October 1 to December 31, 2025, show that most violent crime categories — including murder, rape and robbery — declined. While total contact crime fell by 6,7%. This translates into 12, 682 fewer cases compared with the same quarter last year.
“Overall, the sense of cautious optimism in relation to overall national crime trends that I referred to last year remains. Most violent crime categories continued to decrease. These include murder, rape, robbery and most property-related crimes like theft and burglary. But they remain at unacceptably high levels,” Cachalia said.
He cautioned that the national picture hides sharp provincial differences. This as some areas continue to bleed despite the overall decline.
Slight increases in some regions
“For example, while we have seen double-digit reductions in murder in five provinces, namely KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State and the North West, much smaller decreases were recorded in the Western and Eastern Cape, with slight increases recorded in Limpopo and the Northern Cape,” he said.
Cachalia said gang-related killings in parts of the Western and Eastern Cape remain deeply concerning. This while the murder of police officers has also risen.
“For this quarter, I am deeply concerned with the notable increase in the murder of police officials. Almost 80% of the 23 police officials who lost their lives were off-duty,” he said.
Firearms continue to drive South Africa’s most serious crimes.
“Again, firearms remain the single largest weapon driving murder, robbery and organised crime in our country,” Cachalia said. He added that government would intensify efforts to remove illegal firearms and prevent legal weapons from falling into criminal hands.
Beyond conventional crime, he warned that organised crime now poses a direct threat to democracy and economic stability.
Organised crime
“As the president clearly stated last week in the SONA, ‘organised crime is now the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and economic development’,” Cachalia said.
He said specialised units, lifestyle audits of senior officers, and strengthened detective services form part of government’s push to dismantle criminal networks. These include including the allocation of an additional 999 detectives.
While welcoming the downward trend, Cachalia stressed that the fight is far from over.
“While the national trends for most violent and property crime continue to head in the right direction, crime remains unacceptably high. And it continues to devastate many lives and communities,” he said. “We therefore still have a long journey to travel. But I promise that we will not give up.”
