Food being stolen in more than one in every five house break-ins reflects that "times are tough" in SA‚ says Stats SA Statistician-General Pali Lehohla. Speaking on Thursday, he said Stats SA had done other studies which found hunger and poverty had increased. It released its Victims of Crime Survey for 2016-17 at its offices in Pretoria on Thursday. The survey covered about 30‚000 households with individuals aged 16 years or older to extrapolate the national perception of crime. It found that food was stolen during 22.8% of the house break-ins. The most common items stolen during house break-ins were electronic equipment (54.4%)‚ cellphones (29.1%), and personal items such as jewellery (25.3%). An estimated total of 1.46-million criminal incidents were experienced at 1.15-million households in 2016-17‚ representing 7.2% of all South African households. This is a gradual decrease from the 10.2% of households targeted in 2013-14 and 8.5% in 2015-16. Of these crimes, house break-ins w...
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