Car theft is on the rise again in South Africa after several years of being on the decline.
Stats SA’s latest Victims of Crime (VoC) report covering the 2023/2024 period shows that 222,000 households experienced motor vehicle theft during the past five years. This is up 6% from the 209,000 households in the 2022/2023 period.
The data also shows that car theft in the country posted a consistent decline between 2019/2020 (277,000 households) and 2021/2022 (163,000 households) before starting to climb again.
The reason for the dip and subsequent resurgence can most likely be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most motorists were stuck at home during the pandemic-induced lockdowns, not using their vehicles for months on end. This rendered it more difficult for thieves to steal cars as there were fewer in public areas, and those standing at homes had people close to them around the clock.
However, as lockdown restrictions were peeled back and South Africans started enjoying all the attractions the country has to offer once again, it became easier for criminals to prey on their targets.
Stats SA’s figures are at odds with those released by the South African Police Services (SAPS).
The SAPS’ latest crime statistics show that theft of motor vehicles and motorcycles declined by 5.2% in Q1 of the 2024/2025 period to 8,611 reports.
However, the SAPS’ numbers are based only on incidents reported through official channels, meaning many cases go unheeded as citizens who have lost hope in the authorities stop reporting crimes.
Meanwhile, the Stats SA VoC report queries households on whether they were affected by a particular crime regardless of whether it was relayed to the police. It therefore paints a clearer picture of the situation on the ground, and it’s not looking good.
On the brighter side of things, while Stats SA recorded a 36% increase in cases of vehicle theft over the last two years, it is still well below the level of incidents pre-Covid.
Birds of a feather
Similar to car theft, instances of hijacking have increased in South Africa in recent years as per the VoC report, albeit less drastic.
For the 2023/2024 period, as many as 287,000 households said they experienced hijacking in the past five years, up from 280,000 in the previous period.
The trend is somewhat different when compared to vehicle theft.
Carjackings dove from 265,000 in 2019/2020 to 151,000 in 2020/2021. It then shot up to 330,000 in 2021/2022 before dropping back down to 280,000 in 2022/2023.
The spike in 2021/2022 can once again be attributed to Covid-19.
With hijackers unable to carry out these crimes at the height of Covid restrictions they didn’t earn as much as they were used to, and they therefore had to “make up for lost income” when motorists started travelling the roads more frequently once again.
Again, the Stats SA data conflicts with the SAPS figures.
According to the police, 5,438 carjackings took place across all nine provinces in the first quarter of the 2024/2025 period, reflecting a decline of 0.9% over the same period in 2023.
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