During the years of white rule in South Africa and Rhodesia, the police were efficient and weren't corrupt. Their main focus was keeping crime out of the white areas, murders in Soweto weren't a major priority. You would be okay in a wealthy area like Sandton if you took sensible precautions and followed local advice.
These days, the police are largely ineffective and I would tend to think they were as tainted with corruption as every other state institution. I've worked with a few SA pilots and their stories included: a brother murdered, a best friend murdered and a parent marched into a bank with a knife at their back being forced to withdraw money.
Most people there would have either been the victim of violent crime or had some close to them be a victim.
While white farmers are being murdered at the rate of more than one a week, South Africa brings a case against Israel for genocide at the ICJ in the Hague.