The HSRC South African Social Attitudes Survey on Public Trust in the Police, released on 14 July 2025 comes in the wake of the enforced leave of absence of Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into the corruption claims levelled against him and other senior members of the security and justice cluster.
This follows the explosive claims made recently by Kwazulu Natal provincial commissioner Lt General Nhlanhla Mhkwanazi that a Gauteng-based drug cartel had ‘captured’ SAPS.
The HSRC says “there has been a clear and sustained erosion of public trust in the police over the past quarter century, with distrust now 40 percentage points or approximately three times higher than trust. This suggests serious reputational challenges and growing alienation of the public from law enforcement authorities in the country.”
The Rastafarian community and other cannabis stakeholders, particularly operators in the grey zone, will hardly be surprised by this finding as their experience of SAPS has been seeped in extortion and corruption.
The HSRC says the lack of trust in SAPS is nothing new after three decades of studying the stats: “Not once during this 27-year interval did more than half the adult public say that they trusted the police”.
- Over the 1998 to 2010 period, the average level of trust in the police was relatively static. It ranged between 39% and 42% in all but a few years.
- This was followed by a sharp decline between 2011 and 2013, following the Marikana massacre of August 2012. However, confidence had almost returned to the 2011 level by the time of the 2015 survey round.
- The 2016 to 2020 period was characterised by modest fluctuation between 31% and 35%. The hard COVID-19 lockdown experience, which including instances of police brutality in enforcing lockdown regulations, did not appear to have had an aggregate effect on confidence levels based on the 2020 survey results.
- In 2021 public trust in the police dipped to a low of 27%. This appears to be linked to the July 2021 social unrest. Many criticised the poor performance of the police during the unrest.
- This was followed by a further 5 percentage point decline to 22% in 2022, with the 2023 and 2024/25 confidence levels almost unchanged, which may reflect increasing rates for certain crimes.
- The 2022, 2023 and 2024/25 figures are the lowest recorded in 27 years.
Levels of Trust in the Police, Breakdown by Province
Province
Level of Trust in SAPS 2024/5
Northern Cape
30%
North West
30%
Western Cape
28%
Mpumulanga
27%
Limpopo
24%
Eastern Cape
23%
Free State
21%
KwaZulu Natal
18%
Gauteng
18%
The HSRC says that various factors influence public trust and legitimacy in SAPS.
It summarizes these as follows:
Experiences of crime clearly matter. Those who had been a recent victim of crime displayed significantly lower levels of trust in the police (an average 10 percentage point difference between 1999 and 2023/25). Fear of crime has a similar effect (average of 14 percentage point difference across the 1999-2024/25 period).
Higher levels of fear are associated with lower trust in the police. This applies to classic measures such as fear of walking alone in one’s area after dark, as well as crime-specific fears (i.e., worrying about home robbery or violent assault). These associations have been found across multiple rounds of surveying.
Experiences of policing are also associated with confidence in the police. Negative police experiences by the public have a bearing on police judgements. Those reporting unsatisfactory personal contact with police officers expressed lower trust levels than those reporting satisfactory contact.
Well-publicised instances of police abuse or failure can also seem to reduce public confidence. A prominent example is the perceived ineffectiveness of the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) response to the 2021 social unrest. New SASAS data on attitudes towards the 2021 social unrest demonstrates that harsher assessments of the policing response to the unrest is indeed associated with lower levels of trust in the police.
The risk is that low and diminishing confidence in the police, if left unchecked, will also continue to negatively shape views key elements of police legitimacy, such as a sense of shared moral values and the duty to obey the police.
What does the survey results suggest might need to be done to shore up confidence in the police in the country?
The work of the Institute of Security Studies is essential here. Suggestions include:
- Dispensing with an excessively hierarchical culture,
- Promoting competent and ethical SAPS leadership, as well as
- Strengthening other parts of the overall system of police governance.
Key also is the implementation of a non-militaristic policing ethos. This should be framed around a service culture and use of minimal force. It also requires SAPS to put more measures in place to monitor and control the use of force, and promote a culture of police accountability.
These ideas warrant serious attention. They matter fundamentally for preventing further instances of police misuse of force, corruption among senior officials, and police ineffectiveness in handling crime. This is crucial for stemming and reversing the eroding confidence in the badge.
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