ASSESSING THE CRIME FIGHTERS

The South African criminal justice system is facing a crisis characterized by a decline in prosecution and conviction rates since 1949. While the prosecution service maintains a high success rate for the cases it chooses to take on, the overall system is hampered by weak police forensic capabilities, high case withdrawal rates—particularly in assault cases—and a shortage of experienced prosecutors due to high staff turnover.

• The South African criminal justice system has seen a significant decline in the proportion of reported crimes that result in prosecution and conviction over fifty years. In 1949, 26% of reported crimes were prosecuted and 21% ended in conviction; by 1996, these figures dropped to 10.7% and 7.9% respectively.

APA

Schönteich, M. (1999). ASSESSING THE CRIME FIGHTERS. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/paper40.pdf

Chicago

Schönteich, Martin. ASSESSING THE CRIME FIGHTERS. Institute for Security Studies, 1999. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/paper40.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Schönteich |first1=Martin |title=ASSESSING THE CRIME FIGHTERS |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=September 1999 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/paper40.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{schnteich1999assessing, author = {Schönteich, Martin}, title = {{ASSESSING THE CRIME FIGHTERS}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {1999}, month = sep, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/paper40.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }