Cape Town Crime Trends: Q4 2025/26 Year-on-Year Analysis

Cape Town recorded 64,177 crimes in Q4 2025/26 (January–March 2026), down 1.8% from 65,339 in the same quarter a year earlier. The headline decline is real, but it is an aggregate of movements in both directions.

Contact and property crimes fell across almost every category, while detection-dependent offences rose. Those two movements partly cancel each other out in the total, which is why a single number describes this quarter poorly.

This post presents the data. It does not attribute causation. Crime trends are driven by complex, intersecting factors that a single quarter of statistics cannot isolate.

Data source: SAPS quarterly crime statistics, Q4 2025/2026 (January–March 2026), compared against the same quarter a year earlier, Q4 2024/2025 (January–March 2025). All figures are reported crimes at precinct level. StreetSignal maps 736 of 744 suburbs to 61 SAPS precincts. Full methodology: streetsignal.co.za/methodology/.

What changed: crime categories

The most significant movements were in two directions simultaneously. Categories below are limited to those recording at least 300 incidents in the prior quarter, because percentage changes on small bases are unstable.

Categories that decreased (contact and property crimes):

Categories that increased:

A note on detection-dependent crimes: Drug arrests and DUI arrests are classified as “detection-dependent” because they primarily reflect policing activity rather than civilian reporting. An increase in drug-related crime does not necessarily mean more drug use; it may mean more police operations targeting drugs. The two increases above account for over 2,000 additional recorded offences, which is why the total fell only 1.8% despite broad declines in contact crime.

Note that illegal possession of firearms and ammunition is also detection-dependent, and it decreased 12.2% this quarter. Detection-dependent categories do not move as a bloc.

Murder: 760 lives lost

Murder decreased from 833 to 760 (-8.8%). Attempted murder decreased from 721 to 649 (-10.0%).

An 8.8% decrease in murder is a factual improvement in the data. It is also 760 people who were killed in a single quarter in one metro. Both of these statements are true simultaneously.

Station-level changes

Of the 61 SAPS precincts in the Cape Town metro, 27 recorded declining reported crime (44%), 23 recorded stable levels (38%), and 11 recorded increases (18%).

Stations with the largest decreases in reported crime:

Stations with the largest increases in reported crime:

These are raw crime counts, not rates per capita. A station serving 100,000 residents recording 1,862 crimes has a different per-capita profile than one serving 10,000 residents recording 313 crimes. See individual suburb pages on StreetSignal for per-capita safety indices.

Why the percentage change is not the trend label

A station’s percentage change and its trend label are not the same thing, and the difference is deliberate.

The trend label on each suburb page comes from a statistical significance test for count data, not from the percentage change. It compares the two quarters on a variance-stabilising scale, so the same percentage movement carries different weight depending on the volume behind it. A shift from 3 to 6 incidents is a 100% increase but is well within the random variation expected of small counts; a shift of the same proportion in a station recording thousands is not.

This is why Rondebosch (271 to 274, +1.1%) and Table View (1,342 to 1,384, +3.1%) are both labelled stable despite recording increases, while Bishop Lavis (1,579 to 1,862, +17.9%) is not. Stations with too few reported crimes to support a reliable signal show “Insufficient data” rather than a direction.

The safety index shown on each suburb page is a separate calculation and is harm-weighted, using the Crime Harm Index so that a murder and a shoplifting are not treated as equivalent events. The trend label and the safety index answer different questions and are computed differently. Full detail is on the safety index methodology page.

What this data does not tell you

1. Underreporting. SAPS data reflects reported crimes only. Stats SA’s Victims of Crime Survey consistently shows that a significant proportion of crimes go unreported, particularly sexual offences, assault, and theft. A suburb with low reported crime may have low actual crime, or it may have low reporting rates. The data cannot distinguish between these.

2. Causation. A decrease at a specific station does not mean a specific intervention worked. A single quarter is insufficient to establish a trend. Crime statistics are influenced by policing intensity, reporting practices, socioeconomic conditions, seasonal patterns, and factors that precinct-level data cannot capture.

3. Individual safety. A safety index is a statistical summary. It does not predict what will happen to any individual in any specific location. A suburb with a safety index of 90/100 still has crime. A suburb with a score of 10/100 still has residents who live without incident.

4. Population accuracy. Per-capita rates depend on population denominators. SAPS station populations are estimates that may not reflect actual residential populations, particularly in areas with high transient populations or recent informal settlement growth.

5. Precinct-level resolution. Crime is recorded by precinct, not by suburb. Where several suburbs share one precinct, they share one set of figures, and a station-level movement cannot be attributed to any one of them.

Further reading

• Cape Town crime statistics by suburb (full dataset) for the complete suburb-level breakdown
• Safety index methodology for how StreetSignal calculates the Crime Harm Index
• Individual suburb profiles for per-capita rates, trend direction, and crime category breakdowns at suburb level
• SAPS official release: saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php
• Africa Check’s guide to interpreting SA crime statistics: africacheck.org

Search any suburb on StreetSignal to see its full safety profile, or compare suburbs side by side.