South Africans are accustomed to living with higher rates of serious and violent crime than is the case for much of the rest of the world. A Common Sense report last week set out that our murder rate was approximately 6 or 7 times higher than the global average and 3 to 4 times higher than the African average.

Earlier this year the Social Research Foundation (SRF) polled the question of South Africans’ knowledge of the murder rate. In answer to a question of whether South Africa’s murder rate was higher or lower than global norms 69.7% of respondents said it was higher, 9.1% thought it was the same, and 16.6% thought it was lower.

Responses were remarkably uniform across lines of race, class, age, gender and political affiliation.