South Africa's Justice System in Crisis: 96% Say Crime Goes Unpunished

South Africa’s criminal justice system scored four out of 100 on public trust. That number, drawn from Action Society’s Criminal Justice Trust Indicator released in February 2026, is not a rounding error. It is a verdict.

The survey of 2,057 respondents found that 96.4% believe there is no justice for crime in South Africa. Just over 90% said they had not personally received justice for a criminal offence in the past 20 years. Some 98% believe criminals get away with serious crimes. When asked where the delay lies, 85.4% pointed to the South African Police Service and the courts. For ordinary South Africans, the system does not deliver.

This matters far beyond statistics. Criminological research has established for decades that the strongest factor reducing crime is not harsher sentencing or even police visibility on its own. It is the certainty of consequence. People are deterred when they believe they will be caught, prosecuted and face a real outcome. When they believe nothing will happen, the expected cost of crime collapses. This principle holds whether a country follows a hard-line crime policy or a softer prevention-based model. The methods differ, but the underlying mechanism is the same: crime falls when offenders believe the system will follow through.

South Africa’s system does not follow through.

The debate about devolved policing powers has gained traction in recent years, and for good reason. It is increasingly accepted that capable provinces and metros should be empowered to do more than patrol streets. In places like the Western Cape, the argument for devolved investigative powers has become urgent. Local governments deploy law-enforcement resources, gather intelligence, support neighbourhood safety and respond to crime patterns far closer to the ground than national institutions can. Yet this approach, while important, remains incomplete.

A well-prepared docket needs a prosecutor. A lawful arrest needs an enrollment decision. If the investigative function is localised but the prosecution function remains trapped in a centralised bottleneck, the certainty of consequence does not improve. The National Prosecuting Authority contains many committed prosecutors who work daily in courts across the country. This is not an attack on individual officials. It is an argument about design. A single national prosecuting authority, operating in a system overwhelmed by volume, backlog, withdrawals and poor coordination, cannot be the only path through which every community must seek consequence.

Section 179 of the Constitution created one national prosecuting authority. At the time, that may have seemed essential to ensure uniformity. But constitutional design must serve the public, not become an altar before which victims are sacrificed. If the model no longer delivers justice at scale, it must be reconsidered.

South Africa should amend section 179 to permit provincial prosecutorial powers, linked to devolved investigative powers, under strict national standards. A provincial prosecution service should be allowed only where clear objective criteria are met. Prosecutors must act without fear, favour or prejudice. National norms must apply. The National Director of Public Prosecutions should retain oversight powers in matters of national importance, organised crime spanning provinces or cases involving clear conflicts of interest.

Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption offers a useful model. It did not treat corruption as a policing problem only. Its approach combined investigation, prevention and public education. Crucially, it understood that investigations must be prosecution-ready. The ICAC does not itself prosecute, but evidence is forwarded to Hong Kong’s Department of Justice, whose Prosecutions Division advises investigators and exercises prosecutorial discretion. The lesson is that specialised investigation works only when it is tightly linked to a capable, independent prosecution function. That is precisely the missing link in South Africa.

Decentralised policing without decentralised prosecution is like building a road that stops at the courthouse door.

A provincial prosecution model would also bring accountability closer to the people most affected by crime. Today, victims often have no meaningful way to know why their case is delayed, withdrawn or ignored. Years ago, devolved policing sounded far-fetched. Today it is part of serious public debate. The same shift must happen with prosecution.

South Africans do not need another promise that the NPA must do better. Victims have heard that for years. They need a system redesigned around certainty of consequence. When the criminal justice system scores four out of 100, the status quo has lost the right to be treated as sacred. The question now is whether the political will exists to redesign the system before another generation of victims is told to wait.