Monograph 23: Crime in Cape Town: Results of a City Victim Survey

Understanding the nature and extent of crime is critical to ensuring appropriate policy interventions. A victim survey is an important resource for achieving this. These surveys supplement police information by questioning a representative sample of the population within a defined geographic area.

Victim surveys measure both citizens’ actual experiences of victimisation and their broader perceptions of safety. They therefore provide valuable information about crime, policing and possible crime-prevention measures in a particular area.

More specifically, victim surveys aim to achieve four goals:

• Determine the nature and extent of crime in a geographic area: Although victim surveys are not directly comparable with police statistics, they provide useful information about the “dark figure” of crime — incidents that have not been reported to the police and are therefore not reflected in official statistics. They are also useful for compiling victim profiles and identifying people who are most at risk of repeated victimisation.

• Measure levels of fear of crime among different sectors of the population: The information generated by victim surveys includes the views of both victims and people who have not been victimised. This provides an indication of how citizens respond to crime and their fear of it.

• Determine public perceptions of police effectiveness and service delivery: Victim surveys provide a benchmark against which changes in public perceptions of the police can be measured. They can also support recommendations for possible improvements and interventions.

• Provide useful information for policymaking: This data assists policymakers in designing appropriate interventions across a range of crime-prevention and policing strategies.