Most serious crimes in South Africa decreased from 2003-04, with many continuing a decline over a number of years. Car theft and murder, which are two of the better reported and accurately recorded crimes, declined significantly, which suggests that police data showing decreases in other offenses can be trusted. Data on arrests and the initiation of criminal justice processes show steady improvements in the rate of cases taken to court; the number of arrests has grown exponentially. Some have questioned the reliability of police statistics as a measure of actual crime, since they show only the number of crimes detected by or reported to the police. This criticism is valid, since studies have shown that many crime victims in South Africa do not report their victimizations to the police. Still, although the actual number of offenses committed are not captured in police statistics, as long as the rates of underreporting and underrecording of crime are relatively stable, the crime trends indicated by police statistics over time will be reasonably accurate. Thus, the generally downward trend in crime shown by police crime statistics over the past few years suggests that progress is being made in crime control in South Africa. 9 figures and 8 notes