Wasn't that bad last time I was there ('97)... Sandton was supposed to be pretty safe. I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Pretoria a few days and it wasn't too bad at night. Thought it was pretty funny that you had to pay to have your car guarded while parked on a busy public street though.
Everybody (black & white) said don't go to Joburg at night, and from the look of it in daylight, I wouldn't want to. Damn shame whats happening over there. In this country, when you start making enough money that you can afford luxuries, you start buying things to improve your lifestyle. Over there, if you want to keep anything, you have to spend a fortune on security systems first. I read on another thread that thieves are actually going into nice neighborhoods and stealing the grass to sell as sod!
The home security demands are pretty much universal in Africa it seems. In Dar es Salaam, all homes have a "safe haven" room which is usually a room on the second floor with an iron door at the top of the stairway. The understanding is that the thieves can ransack the house but tend to leave everyone alone in the "safe haven" part of the house. More often than not, the local private security personnel are involved in the robberies. Nice way to live, no??