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Table 11: Targets of Robbery and Weapons Used 1998
TARGETS	WEAPONS USED
	FIREARM	OTHER WEAPON	TOTAL
Private persons	23 202	8 051	31 253
Motor vehicles (ldv’s excluded)	14 958	890	15 848
Businesses	12539	815	13354
Residences	10 133	1 576	11 709
Firearms (Firearms forcefully taken)	4 045	940	4 985
Delivery vehicles with cargo	3 385	171	3 556
Delivery vehicles without cargo	2 527	93	2 620
Clients outside businesses	1141	219	1 360
Banks & building societies	560	182	742
Clients inside businesses	404	56	460
Persons at businesses	356	148	504
Light delivery vehicles	339	99	438
Cash in transit	249	20	269
Persons at ATM’s	153	0	153
Post offices	75	76	151
Motor cycles	53	6	59
SANDF vehicles	1	0	1
Others not mentioned elsewhere	0	42	42
TOTAL	74120	13384	87504
Source: SAPS ClAC

The most common targets of firearm robberies were private persons (31.3%) followed by motor vehicles (20.2%) and businesses (16.9%). In residential robberies, where weapons were used, they were firearms in 86.5% of instances.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of murder of police officers in the world. For the years 1994 to 1998, an average of more than 240 police officers were murdered per year in South Africa. Minnaar (1988:24) has shown that in comparison to South Africa, for the period 1987 - 1997, a total of 696 police officers were murdered in the USA, approximately 70 killed every year. In the United Kingdom (England and Wales, excluding Scotland and Northern Ireland) for the years 1987 - 1996, a total of only 17 police officers were killed while on duty, or two per year. In Australia, for the period 1994 - 1997, a total of 24 police personnel were murdered, or 6 per year. In New Zealand the figures are even lower at under five per year while in Holland only one police officer was murdered in 1997.

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⁶Statistics were obtained from the SAPS Medical Board’s "live" system and may therefore differ from statistics in future reports pertaining to the topic.