In April 2018, StatsSA launched the Governance Public Safety and Justice Survey (GPSJS) in response to the need for standardised international reporting standards on governance and access to justice that are recommended by the SDGs, ShaSA and Agenda 2063. In compliance with these standards, Stats SA discontinued the separate publication of the Victims of Crime Survey (VCS) and incorporated it within the new GPSJS series. Therefore, the GPSJS represents the new source of microdata on the experience and prevalence of particular kinds of crime within South Africa.
The GPSJS is a countrywide household-based survey which collects data on two types of crimes, namely, vehicle hijacking and home robbery. Business robbery is not covered by the survey. The survey includes information on victimization experienced by individuals and households and their perspectives on community responses to crime. Additionally, the survey data includes information on legitimacy, voice, equity and discrimination. Therefore, GPSJS data can be used for research in the development of policies and strategies for governance, crime prevention, public safety and justice programmes. The main objectives of the survey are to:
• Provide information about the dynamics of crime from the perspective of households and the victims of crime.
• Explore public perceptions of the activities of the police, prosecutors, courts and correctional services in the prevention of crime and victimization.
• Provide complimentary data on the level of crime within South Africa in addition to the statistics published annually by the South African Police Service.
NOTE: The GPSJS is a continuation of the VCS series, which ended with VCS 2017/18. Therefore, the VCS 2018/19 can be extracted from GPSJS 2018/19 and is comparable to previous VCS's only where questions remained the same. Please see Data Quality Notes for more information on comparability.