"Crime remains unacceptably high and continues to affect many families and communities." — Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia, 20 February 2026
This notebook interrogates the claim by SAPS Crime Registrar Major-General Thulare Sekhukhune that reported rape cases decreased by 3.2% in Q3 FY2025/26 — and places that claim within two decades of femicide surveillance data published by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).
Produced from the perspective of a private security analytical division conducting occasional work with SAPS, this notebook applies rigorous data science methodology to one of South Africa's most critical public health and safety challenges.
- Is there truly a decrease in reported rape as stated by Maj-Gen Sekhukhune?
- What does the SAMRC's 20-year femicide surveillance data reveal that SAPS statistics cannot?
- Which provinces and demographics are at highest risk?
- What does statistical modelling predict for FY2025/26 and FY2026/27?
| Phase | Cells | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | 1–2 | Environment setup, CSV data pipeline |
| Phase 2 | 3–10 | Exploratory data analysis — 8 visualisation panels |
| Phase 3 | 11–15 | Statistical modelling — correlation, anomaly detection, regression, forecasting |
| Phase 4 | 16–19 | Intelligence report, dashboard, recommendations |
- Pearson & Spearman correlation analysis
- Z-score anomaly detection (annual + provincial)
- Isolation Forest anomaly detection
- OLS regression — simple & multiple with full diagnostics
- Linear extrapolation with 95% prediction intervals
- Holt's Exponential Smoothing
- ARIMA(1,1,0) with confidence intervals
- 3-model ensemble forecasting
| Source | Description | Period |
|---|---|---|
| SAPS Q3 2025/26 | Cachalia press briefing, 20 Feb 2026 | Oct–Dec 2025 |
| SAPS Annual Reports | Historical crime statistics | FY2012/13–FY2023/24 |
| SAMRC Femicide Study | Abrahams et al. (2025), Global Public Health | 1999–2020/21 |
| Africa Check | Underreporting research | Various |
| Stats SA | Mid-year population estimates | 2013–2025 |
sa-crime-intelligence/
├── SA_Crime_Intelligence_Report.ipynb # Main notebook
├── intelligence_dashboard.png # Exported dashboard
├── data/
│ ├── quarterly_rape.csv
│ ├── annual_sexual_offences.csv
│ ├── contact_crimes_q3.csv
│ ├── provincial_rape.csv
│ ├── femicide_samrc.csv
│ └── underreporting_estimates.csv
└── README.md
On the reported rape decrease: A 3.2% decline in reported rape (373 fewer cases) does NOT constitute evidence of reduced sexual violence. Three provinces recorded increases, and underreporting research estimates only 1 in 25 rapes reaches SAPS records.
On femicide (SAMRC, 2025): South Africa's intimate partner femicide rate of 5.5 per 100,000 women is five times the global average. This rate INCREASED during COVID-19 and has not structurally declined since 2009.
On the forecast: Ensemble modelling (Linear + Holt's ES + ARIMA) projects no structural decline in the rape rate for FY2025/26 or FY2026/27.
| Category | Tools |
|---|---|
| Data manipulation | Python, Pandas, NumPy |
| Visualisation | Matplotlib, Seaborn |
| Statistical analysis | SciPy, Statsmodels |
| Machine learning | Scikit-learn (Isolation Forest) |
| Time series | Statsmodels (Holt's ES, ARIMA) |
| Environment | Google Colab |
All data used is sourced from publicly available official government publications and peer-reviewed research. This notebook does not contain classified or confidential SAPS operational data. Findings represent the independent analytical conclusions of the author.
Lindiwe Songelwa™ — Data Scientist | Developer | Insight Creator
© 2026 Lindiwe Songelwa™. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without express written permission of the author.