Written By: Matsheole Majoro
Walking alone after midnight in Tokyo is ordinary. In Oslo, it is routine but in Johannesburg it is a calculated risk that a lot of people simply will not take. The difference is not geography; it is trust, trust that the stranger on the street is not a threat, trust that the justice system works and that the state will protect its citizens. Japan and Norway rank amid the world’s safest countries. South Africa is regularly ranked among the most dangerous. The gap is a product of institutional failure and not cultural destiny.
Japan recorded an average homicide rate of 0.24 per 100,000 people between 2017 and 2022. Norway’s rate was way below 0.6 per 100,000 people. In South Africa, over 5000 murders were committed in the first three months of 2026, that is an average of 58 murders a day. More than 80% of murders happen in just four provinces, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern and Western Cape. The Eastern Cape listed 14.3 murders per 100,000 people, which is roughly 60 times Japan’s rate.
There is a sharp contrast. In Japan, lost cell phones are regularly returned to their owners. In Norway, low crime rates are matched with low incarceration rates. In South Africa, violent crimes are a daily reality. Communities are stuck in a cycle of fear and violence, and this is all because of governance failures.
What do Japan and Norway do differently? Institutional trust, Japan’s social discipline is strengthened by strong cultural standards and an intense sense of collective responsibility. Norway’s institutions are understood as fair, unbiased and effective. The state is trusted to implement rules regularly; citizens return that trust.
Research verifies the link between institutional trust and safety. Recent studies reveal that the states unbiased, legality and accountability are important to macro-level social trust. This trust lowers transaction costs, encourages economic growth and supports democratic legitimacy. High institutional trust corresponds with lower crime rates; corruption weakens this trust, and where corruption views are high, trust in others declines and safety worsens.
South Africa’s crime shows a deeper reality where the worst violence happens institutional legitimacy is the weakest. In communities where police are understood and unproductive and oppressive, people lose faith in the justice system. Avenger groups are created; neighbourhood watch groups turn into mobs. The states inability to deliver basic services undermines lawfulness.
The solution is to hold police accountable for their actions. The state must show that it can protect its people consistently and not selectively. Secondly, the state needs to ensure that the justice system handles cases quickly, openly and honestly. A case that disappears into the system is a case that teaches the people that the law doesn’t work for them. Third, decentralise policing where possible, allow communities to partner with law enforcement in ways that build trust and not resentment. Fourth, the state should address corruption at every stage, if a state consistently tolerates corruption, it relinquishes it right to command trust from its citizens.
Accountability alone is not enough. South Africa must open a market for security. As of now, policing is a state monopoly and monopolies whether public or private, serve themselves before they serve the customer. Wealthy suburbs already have private security companies because the state is unable to protect them. Poor communities cannot afford this option and so they are left with the worst of both worlds: no state protection and no private choice.
Allow private security providers to work legally in townships, with transparent standards and consent from the community. Let the community choose their safety arrangements instead of waiting for a police van that never arrives. Competition would welcome accountability. A security company that is unable to protect its clients lose them, but instead a police station that fails to protect its precinct just gets another budget increase.
Insurance markets also have a part to play. Private insures already encourage safety by offering lower premiums to clients who have alarm systems or live in well-lit areas. Expanding these incentives through community rating would reward safe behaviour without coercion.
Japan and Norway did not become safe overnight; they established institutions over decades. Safety is a function of institutional trust and not wealth. South Africans are not unable to have safe lives; they have just been failed by the same government that promised to protect them, by failing to deliver. South Africans shouldn’t wait for the state to change, they should demand accountability, they should build neighbourhood organisations that do not depend on government authorisation.
The gap between Johannesburg and Tokyo is a gap of institutional failure that can be closed. South African’s do not need a safety plan; they need a new relationship between the state and its people. A relationship built on trust and not fear, a relationship that makes walking alone at night ordinary again.
Matsheole Majoro is a final year student and an associate of the Free Market Foundation.
The above analysis is simplistic. Japan and Norway are wealthy countries, have largely homogenous populations with low GINI scores. Those three factors alone tell you why SA with its high crime rate is different - per capita spend on law enforcement, inter and intra group friction and incentives to commit crimes.