Dealing with perceptions of crime, particularly anxiety and fear of crime, is as important as reducing crime levels. Fear of crime affects quality of life and has negative economic and political consequences. It can also affect people’s willingness to interact and co-operate with the government, particularly the police, but also with local government crime prevention practitioners.

Public perceptions of crime are rarely based on statistical information about crime levels or the risk of crime. Instead, factors like actual victimisation, general impressions of the city environment, the media, interaction with colleagues, friends and family, perceptions about government’s ability to provide safety and the extent to which people feel helpless against crime, determine public perception.

Most unsafe parts of the city

The survey showed that just over half of all Durban residents thought the inner city area was the most unsafe place in the metropolitan area. More than a quarter said the townships were most unsafe (table 10). Relatively few people thought the suburbs and informal settlements were most unsafe.

Surveys in South Africa’s other metropolitan areas produced similar results.20 It is common for people to believe that they are most vulnerable in inner city areas. Fear of crime in the inner city is probably the result of a range of concerns about crime levels, but also about general governance issues such as congestion, overcrowding, uncontrolled street-hawking and litter. In some cases, the risk of crime may be quite unjustifiably associated with particular groups of people such as street children and street traders.

Perceptions about Durban’s inner city, however, did vary based on where people lived and worked. Coloured, white and Asian respondents were much more likely to think the inner city was the most unsafe place in Durban than African respondents. Africans were much more likely to believe that township areas — where most Africans in Durban live — were the most unsafe places in the metropolitan area (table 10). The public’s assessment of their own safety is thus not always based on the same set of factors. For some, fear of crime may be based on actual victimisation — for others, it might be about the anticipated risk and consequences of crime, as well as the belief that the government is unsuccessful in managing certain parts of the city and controlling some of its inhabitants.

Fear of crime

Fear of crime does not affect everyone to the same extent. It is likely to be highest among those people who:

think they are at risk of becoming a victim;

are least likely to receive protection and support;

feel helpless to prevent crime or respond to victimisation; and

worry about the consequences of crime — whether psychological, social, physical or economic.

Women, the aged and the poor typically fear crime the most. These trends have been supported by victim surveys in South Africa and abroad.21 Similar patterns were found in Durban, with the exception of age. The survey showed that fear of crime varied little from one age category to the next.

The Durban victim survey asked people how safe they felt walking in their residential areas during the day and after dark. The question was posed in this particular way to ensure that respondents considered their personal safety in their own neighbourhood, rather than formulating answers on the basis of broad political and social factors that may influence perceptions of safety. Respondents were presented with a spectrum of options ranging from ‘very safe’ to ‘very unsafe’. These have been combined into the two variables used in the analysis below.

Most respondents (68%) felt safe in their areas during the day, and unsafe (73%) after dark. During both periods, Africans were least likely of all the race groups to feel safe, and coloureds and Asians were most likely to feel safe (figures 23 and 24).

Similarly, women felt much less safe than men in Durban. During the day, just over half of the women (56%) said they felt safe walking in their areas, compared to 80% of men. At night, only 19% of women felt safe, compared to 35% of men.

Feelings of safety varied the most based on where people lived in the city. During the day, only half of those people living in the inner city and in informal settlements felt safe, compared to 78% of those in the suburbs (figure 25). After dark, only 13% of those in informal settlements felt safe compared to more than one-third in the suburbs (figure 26).

The patterns relating to fear of crime among the various race groups in Durban correlate with the findings related to residential areas. Thus, Africans felt less safe than other people in the city — and people living in informal settlements and townships (who are mostly African) also felt least safe.

The general lack of services and infrastructure in informal settlements also plays a role in increasing the risk of victimisation in an environment lacking in basic policing and other systems of protection and support. Residents of informal settlements are thus least able to protect themselves from crime, either through physical measures to safeguard their property or the ability to choose safer transport routes, places to live, or places of recreation. In addition, these areas are poorly policed. The survey showed (chapter 6) that residents of informal settlements were least likely to say the police were doing a good job at controlling crime: 18% were of this opinion, compared to 27% in the townships, 29% in the suburbs and 34% in the inner city.

These findings also support the analysis above that views of safety in the inner city are based on a range of factors — not all of which are directly related to crime and policing. Thus, inner city residents felt most unsafe during the day (when the inner city is alive with people and crowds) — but felt safer than most other residents did at night (when the inner city is quiet). Given that inner city residents were most likely to say the police were doing a good job, these findings illustrate that fear of crime in these parts is based on factors quite different from those applying to informal settlements and townships.

What people fear the most about crime

Respondents were asked what they feared the most about crime. Their answers were grouped into the four categories listed in table 11 below. The question aimed to understand more about the nature of the fear of crime and the impact of crime.

The most common fear expressed by people in Durban was loss of life. This was followed by other forms of violence, including sexual violence and physical injury. Only one in ten people said they feared the loss of property. There were, however, significant differences in what people feared about crime based on race and, to a lesser extent, gender.

Africans were least likely to fear loss of life, but most likely to fear physical injury and loss of property. Coloureds were much more likely to fear loss of life, but least likely to worry about physical injury (table 11). In the case of gender, men were more likely to say they feared physical injury the most (24%) than were women (14%). Men also worried more about the loss of life (57%) than women (44%). Not surprisingly, more women feared sexual violence (32%) than men (5%).

The fact that half of all Durbanites said their primary fear about crime was physical violence of some sort indicates the extent to which the problem of violence pervades society. This is probably a reflection both of reality and of perception. Among Africans, for example, fearing loss of life, sexual violence and physical injury correlates with their risk of becoming victims of these crimes. The survey showed that Africans were most at risk of murder and sexual assault and that their risk of assault was higher than the total for Durban. For whites and Asians, however, a similar prioritisation of fears does not match the actual risks faced by these groups.

Fear about crime is thus based on more than the actual risk of victimisation. The perceived consequences are one possible factor. This may explain why Africans in Durban were six times more likely than whites (and nine times more likely than Asians) to say their main fear was loss of property. For those who cannot afford insurance and are less able to replace stolen goods — particularly if it is the car used to get to work — the impact of such a property crime is much higher than for the wealthy.22

It may also be true that those who have been exposed to particular types of crime (or any other event for that matter) for some time, are more accustomed to dealing with it, and are more confident that they will be able to ‘handle’ the incident. This may explain why Africans (who were most at risk of murder) were least likely to fear loss of life. Similarly, it may explain why coloureds (who were most at risk of assault) were least likely to fear physical injury.

Ultimately, the survey results show that feelings of safety and fear of crime are complex phenomena. Rarely do all people in a particular area express the same views. Understanding the basis for these views is also not simple. If practitioners and policy makers wish to intervene to reduce the fear of crime, these issues should be better understood.