South Africa's crime rate is among the highest in the world and remains one of the major cause overshadowing the biggest sporting event to be held on the African continent.

'With the 2010 World Cup fast approaching, the usual rhetoric and empty promises must once and for all be brought to an end. We need more police, and better training; we need to deal with the backlog of 20,000 forensic laboratory samples; we need the reconstitution of specialised units, and an end to cadre deployment within our police service,' Dianne Kohler Barnard, an opposition Democratic Alliance MP, was quoted as saying by the daily.

Statistics for the 2008-09 financial year showed that 2.1 million serious crimes were recorded. Violent crime in general was down 2.8 percent, but the overall crime level rose by 0.2 percent.