tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/south-africa-crime-9913/articlesSouth Africa crime – The Conversation2022-10-24T13:17:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1912662022-10-24T13:17:41Z2022-10-24T13:17:41ZArtificial intelligence is used for predictive policing in the US and UK – South Africa should embrace it, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486478/original/file-20220926-14-5pa015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Predictive policing may be a useful addition to traditional policing in contexts like South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fani Mahuntsi/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 2002 movie Minority Report (based on a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581125.The_Minority_Report">short story</a> by Philip K Dick), director Steven Spielberg imagined a future in which three psychics can “see” murders before they happen. Their clairvoyance allows Tom Cruise and his “Precrime” police force to avert nearly all potential homicides.</p>
<p>Twenty years on, in the real world, scientists and law enforcement agencies are using data mining and machine learning to mimic those psychics. Such “<a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/can-predictive-policing-prevent-crime-it-happens">predictive policing</a>”, as it is called, is based on the fact that many crimes – and criminals – have <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203118214-13/crime-pattern-theory-paul-brantingham-patricia-brantingham">detectable patterns</a>.</p>
<p>Predictive policing has enjoyed some successes. In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01900692.2019.1575664">case study</a> in the US, one police department was able to reduce gun incidents by 47% over the typically gun-happy New Year’s Eve. <a href="https://www.ironsidegroup.com/case-study/predictive-policing-success-manchester-police-department/">Manchester police</a> in the UK were similarly able to predict and reduce robberies, burglaries and thefts from motor vehicles by double digits in the first 10 weeks of rolling out predictive measures.</p>
<p>Predictive policing has improved in leaps and bounds. <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-642-40994-3_33.pdf">In the past</a>, humans had to manually pore over crime reports or filter through national crime databases. Now, in the age of <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/book/data-mining-trends-applications-criminal/146986">big data, data mining</a> and powerful computers, that process can be automated. </p>
<p>But merely finding information is not enough to deter crime. The data needs to be analysed to detect underlying patterns and relationships. Scientists deploy algorithms and mathematical models such as machine learning, which imitates the way humans learn, to extract useful information and insights from existing data. </p>
<p>Recently, we <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3488933.3488973">turned to</a> a mathematical method conceived in the 18th century to refine our approach. By tweaking an existing algorithm based on this method, we significantly improved its crime prediction rates.</p>
<p>This finding holds promise for applying predictive policing in under-resourced contexts like South Africa. This could help reduce crime levels – some of the highest in the world and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-03-crime-crisis-continues-in-first-quarter-of-2022-with-women-and-children-worst-affected">rising</a>. It’s a situation the country’s police force seems <a href="https://africacheck.org/infofinder/explore-facts/how-many-people-does-one-police-officer-serve-south-africa">ill-equipped</a> to curb.</p>
<h2>Marrying two different approaches</h2>
<p>Thomas Bayes was a British mathematician. His famed <a href="https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/bayes-theorem.html">Bayes’ theorem</a> essentially describes the probability of an event occurring based on some prior knowledge of conditions that may be related to that event. Today, Bayesian analysis is commonplace in fields as diverse as artificial intelligence, astrophysics, finance, gambling and weather forecasting. We fine-tuned the Naïve Bayes algorithm and <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3488933.3488973">put it to the test</a> as a crime predictor. </p>
<p>Bayesian analysis can use probability statements to answer research questions about unknown parameters of statistical models. For example, what is the probability that a suspect accused of a crime is guilty? But going deeper – like calculating how poker cards may unfold, or how humans (especially humans with criminal intent) will act – requires increasingly sophisticated technologies and algorithms. </p>
<p><a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3488933.3488973">Our research</a> built on the Naïve Bayes algorithm or classifier, a popular supervised machine learning algorithm, for <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3488933.3488973">crime prediction</a>. </p>
<p>Naïve Bayes starts on the premise that features – the variables that serve as input – are conditionally independent, meaning that the presence of one feature does not affect the others.</p>
<p>We fine-tuned the Naïve Bayes algorithm by marrying it with another algorithm known as <a href="https://machinelearningmastery.com/rfe-feature-selection-in-python/">Recursive Feature Elimination</a>. This tool assists in selecting the more significant features in a dataset and removing the weaker ones, with the objective of improving the results.</p>
<p>We then applied our finessed algorithm to a popular experimental dataset extracted from the Chicago Police Department’s <a href="https://home.chicagopolice.org/services/clearmap-application/">CLEAR</a> (Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting) system, which has been used to predict and reduce crime in that American city. That dataset has been applied globally because of the rich data it contains: it provides incident-level crime data, registered offenders, community concerns, and locations of police stations in the city.</p>
<p>We compared the results of our enhanced Naïve Bayes against that of the original Naïve Bayes, as well as against other predictive algorithms such as Random Forests and Extremely Randomized Trees (algorithms we have <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3488933.3488972">also worked</a> on for crime prediction). We found that we could improve on the predictions of the Naïve Bayes by about 30%, and could either match or improve on the predictions of the other algorithms.</p>
<h2>Data and bias</h2>
<p>While our model holds promise, there’s one element that’s sorely lacking in applying it to South African contexts: data. As the Chicago CLEAR system illustrates, predictive models work best when you have lots of relevant data to work with. But South Africa’s police force has historically been very tight-fisted with its data, perhaps due to confidentiality issues. I ran into this problem in my <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/25319">doctoral research</a> on detecting and mapping crime series.</p>
<p>This is slowly shifting. We are currently running a small case study in Bellville, a suburb about 20km from Cape Town’s central business district and the area in which our university is located, using the <a href="https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/slwessels/crime-statistics-for-south-africa">South African Police Service data</a> for predictive policing.</p>
<p>None of this is to suggest that predictive policing alone will solve South Africa’s crime problem. Predictive algorithms and policing are not without their flaws. Even the psychics in Minority Report, it turned out, were not error-free. Fears that these algorithms may simply reinforce racial biases, for instance, have been raised both in <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-08-02-sa-police-may-be-jumping-the-gun-by-implementing-new-crimefighting-technologies/">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/can-predictive-policing-prevent-crime-it-happens">elsewhere</a>.</p>
<p>But we believe that, with continuous technological improvement, predictive policing could play an important role in bolstering the police’s responsiveness and may be a small step towards improving public confidence in the police.</p>
<p><em>Dr Olasupo Ajayi of the Department of Computer Science at the University of the Western Cape and Mr Sphamandla May, a master’s student in the department, co-authored this article and the research it’s based on.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191266/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omowunmi Isafiade does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Predictive policing has improved in leaps and bounds and become increasingly automated thanks to big data, data mining and powerful computers.Omowunmi Isafiade, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1861612022-08-23T13:34:16Z2022-08-23T13:34:16ZSexual violence in South Africa: where are the male victims?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480548/original/file-20220823-24-5nlbhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Men and boys count among the victims of sexual violence. Estimates and contexts vary, but it seems that worldwide, they make up <a href="https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol60/iss3/3/">around 10%</a> of victims of sexual violence. According to <a href="https://1in6.org/get-information/bristlecone/rees-mann/">Rees Mann</a>, the founder of <a href="http://www.samsosa.org/wp/">South African Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse</a>, one in six adult males in the country have been victims of sexual offences in their lifetimes and, in 2012, <a href="https://www.news24.com/health24/Lifestyle/Man/Your-body/Male-rape-still-considered-a-joke-in-South-Africa-20150729">19.4%</a> of all sexual abuse victims were male. But men are up to <a href="https://www.health24.com/Lifestyle/Man/Your-body/Male-rape-still-considered-a-joke-in-South-Africa-20150729">10 times less likely</a> than women to report sexual violence against them.</p>
<p>In a 2017 <a href="https://www.news24.com/health24/Lifestyle/Man/Your-body/male-rape-victim-he-turned-me-over-with-force-20170829">news report</a>, an anonymous victim says he tried to tell his closest male friends about being raped. They laughed and said, “What, are you gay now?” and he responded with, “I am not gay. I was raped.” He then withdrew from them. Some feminist activists are <a href="https://cofemsocialchange.org/learning-advocacy-tools/cofem-svri-paper-video-series/paper-4/">reluctant</a> to focus on the male victims because they think it will undermine long-fought-for attention for female victims.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1350506820904982">My argument</a> is that activists and scholars must rethink their neglect of male victims. Men and boys as actual or potential victims (not only as perpetrators) must be explicitly integrated into our understanding of and resistance to sexual violence. At the same time, we must resist creating victim hierarchies or ranks. </p>
<h2>Overlaps</h2>
<p>While there are likely differences in how the aftermath of sexual violence plays out for women and men – think of unwanted pregnancy, for example – there are also remarkable overlaps.</p>
<p>For instance, the Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/02/26/we-will-teach-you-lesson/sexual-violence-against-tamils-sri-lankan-security-forces">report</a> We Will Teach You a Lesson (2013) deals with sexual violence perpetrated by Sri Lankan security forces against political detainees. Both women and men experienced deep shame and stigma because of the sexual nature of the violation. Fear of judgemental reactions from others, fear of reprisals and the wish to avoid stigma led both groups to censor themselves to the point of hiding their ordeal from friends and family. Sexual violation as one form of torture was undeniably meant to inscribe on the victims a message of humiliation, subjugation and impotence. </p>
<p>Thus, instead of assuming that sexual violation is necessarily somehow worse for either men or women, we must instead look more closely at the apparently greater struggle male victims have to become socially visible. </p>
<p>Without forgetting how long it took for women victims to be taken seriously, one must nevertheless ask in whose interest it is that currently there is a systemic erasure of male victims. As long as society trivialises or denies what happens to some men, the degrading injustice done to them is doubled.</p>
<p>There are three main reasons feminist activists should take on the cause of male victims of sexual violence. </p>
<p>First, it is a matter of gender justice. The aim of feminism has never been to invert the gender hierarchy, but instead to fight for gender equality. Ignoring the male victims is gender discrimination. </p>
<p>Second, the inclusion of the figure of the male victim into our imagination around sexual violence helps us to see aspects of this type of violence more clearly. Specifically, it helps us to expose some of patriarchy’s most pernicious lies. </p>
<p>Third, the overt inclusion of male victims can help to create broader solidarities against sexual violence, exposing the delusion that it is a “women’s problem”. It will show that patriarchal oppression and the sexual violence needed to uphold it is harmful to all of us and destroys democracy.</p>
<h2>Why feminists must take up the cause</h2>
<p>The first reason is a matter of justice. The reality of male rape is most likely to surface in jokes related to prison rape, which trivialises the suffering. There is a widespread assumption that men, especially certain kinds of men (effeminate, young), will routinely be raped in prison. It is even sometimes viewed as a legitimate part of state punishment. Yet, prison rape is a serious human rights violation that has received little attention from human rights activists and feminists worldwide. There is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1350506815605345">increased recognition</a> of male victims of conflict related sexual violence globally, but not in peace time. </p>
<p>The second reason for taking male victims seriously is because it challenges some of our core assumptions about sexual violence. The destructive aims and outcomes of a sexual attack, and in particular its power dimension, are easier to “see” when the victim is pictured as male. It is precisely this evocative image of the sexually humiliated male victim that makes it so dangerous to patriarchal societies. </p>
<p>French philosopher Michel Foucault’s famous <a href="https://suplaney.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/foucault-the-history-of-sexuality-volume-1.pdf">insight</a> that sexuality is “an especially dense transfer point for relations of power” gets obscured when women are imagined as natural and timeless victims of sexual violence, and men as natural sexual predators, immune to sexual humiliation. In contrast, the “spectacle” of the male rape victim brings home that sexual vulnerability is a social and political, and not a natural, biological condition. Prison rape shows vividly how “sex right” (masculine, impenetrable) on the one hand, and sexual exploitability (feminine, vulnerable) on the other, do not pre-exist or cause sexual violence, but are the two opposed but related outcomes of sexual threat and violation.</p>
<p>Under patriarchy, sexual vulnerability becomes <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05568640903420889">ideologically gendered</a> as a male vs female issue. But the reality of the rape of men shows that is not the absence of a penis that renders one sexually violable with impunity; it may be something more like the absence of prison currency, such as cigarettes or powerful allies. All power is socially constructed in the end. </p>
<p>Male-on-male rape thus exposes the lies that naturalise “heteronormative” (straight) rape and illuminates the scaffoldings of power that keep it intact. It shows that “rape culture” is a socio-political phenomenon that keeps women and other feminised groups subjugated. Furthermore, “male rape talk” is very carefully policed, because the destabilising spectre of homosexuality emerges on both sides of the violation. It has the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/5926074/Dubravka_Zarkov_The_Body_of_War_Media_Ethnicity_and_Gender_in_the_Break_up_of_Yugoslavia">potential to demean</a> both perpetrator (as bestial) and victim (as homosexualised), and therefore rape conversations about male victims are even more tightly contained. This is especially true in homophobic societies like South Africa’s, as we have seen in the news report quoted above.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book with a black cover and illustration of one hand stitching another hand with a needle and thread and the words, in red, " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479159/original/file-20220815-16-q6mom4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Manchester University Press</span></span>
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<p>So, to include male victims of sexual violence in our campaigns, consciousness raising and activism, in my view, threatens patriarchy much more than it threatens feminist aims. Rather, it furthers feminist aims of contesting and disrupting patriarchal patterns of interpreting sexual violence and must be incorporated as a matter of urgency. </p>
<p>Finally, it is also likely to open new avenues for alliance building and solidarity across not only the sexes (women and men) but also more widely, in terms of non-binary and homosexual allies. In this way, the fight against sexual violence and misogyny is not diluted, but rather shows a fuller understanding of the different guises of its opponent.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from the author’s chapter in the new book <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526157621/intimacy-and-injury/">Intimacy and Injury</a>, published by Manchester University Press.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise du Toit does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Activists and scholars must rethink their neglect of male victims if South Africa is to better understand and resist sexual violence.Louise du Toit, Professor of Philosophy, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1855442022-07-03T08:10:53Z2022-07-03T08:10:53ZPlasma gangs: how South Africans’ fears about crime created an urban legend<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470312/original/file-20220622-3417-d2mg4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Rushay Booysen/EyeEm via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around the middle of 2013 a series of <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/plasma-tv-powder-drug-craze-1570154">stories</a> appeared in the South African press about a new phenomenon called ‘plasma gangs’, presented as the latest iteration of the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-bheki-cele-release-quarter-four-crime-statistics-202122-3-jun-2022-0000">crime crisis</a>. Journalists, broadcasters, police and government spokespeople, social media users and local residents shared tales online and in mainstream media of the frightening <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/xenophobia-erupts-over-plasma-tv-gang-1571182">exploits</a> of these gangs, said to be located in Alexandra (Alex) township in the north of Johannesburg. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/alexandra-township-johannesburg">Alex</a>, like other South African townships, is an underdeveloped and sometimes precarious area, blighted by the inequality and racial segregation that were central to apartheid spatial engineering. Developed in the early 20th century to house around 30,000 people, it is now home to an estimated <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-10-18-waiting-to-exhale-the-story-of-alexandra-township/">700,000</a>. This density creates intense pressure on infrastructure and resources, as well as a powerful community culture that lends itself to the transmission of urban legends.</p>
<h2>Plasma gangs</h2>
<p>Plasma gangs were not like “normal” robbers, who stole anything of value. They had very specific modus operandi. They were said to break into Alex homes with the express purpose of stealing plasma televisions. According to the stories, the gangs used various technologies to achieve this aim, such as hypermodern electronic devices that could tell from outside which homes contained the TVs. Another method involved techniques of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/19/mandela.muti/index.html">muti</a>, indigenous magic, that sent residents to sleep while their homes were plundered.</p>
<p>They were extremely violent and often caused death or harm. But rather than selling the desirable consumer goods they stole, as one might expect from criminal syndicates, the gangs were said to dismantle them and break them open. Then they extracted a mysterious white powder that was used to make <a href="https://www.newframe.com/nyaope-the-drug-that-never-lets-go/">nyaope</a>, a street drug otherwise known as wonga or <a href="http://www.kznhealth.gov.za/mental/Whoonga.pdf">whoonga</a>. Depending on which story one heard, the gangs were either nyaope addicts themselves or professional dealers of the drug.</p>
<h2>Nyaope</h2>
<p>Nyaope is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfn9o_Aqn6k">notorious</a> in South African cities. It is extremely destructive and the subject of a large body of urban mythology. Experts generally agree that it is comprised of a mix of substances, usually a base of cheap heroin with additions like asbestos, rat poison, milk powder, bicarbonate of soda and even swimming pool cleaner. As is common with drug-related panics, stories about nyaope pull a range of other social anxieties into their axis. </p>
<p>There is no mysterious powder in plasma televisions that can <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2013/09/25/Plasma-gang-myth-busted">be used</a> to get high. Plasma is a descriptor for a technology rather than a substance. The powder contained in these devices is magnesium oxide, a small amount of which coats the display electrodes in a thin layer. Magnesium oxide is easily purchased at health food stores. It has never been shown to have any psychotropic effects. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anxiety-in-johannesburg-new-views-on-a-global-south-city-147517">Anxiety in Johannesburg: new views on a global south city</a>
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<p>Concerns about drug users and dealers played powerfully into the plasma gangs narrative. The nyaope connection is part of what set this story aside from “normal, everyday” crime and helped it morph into an urban legend that continues to be disseminated as one of the risks of living in South Africa. </p>
<h2>Social anxiety</h2>
<p>The plasma gangs story shows the way in which <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/townships">township</a> residents’ narratives about their own precarity are both hypermodern and related to globalised and transnational anxieties about status, consumption, belonging and identity. It combines the local and the global, the historical and the contemporary, to reveal the social utility of urban legends. </p>
<p>The fact that plasma gangs are not empirically ‘real’ is almost beside the point. The story condenses fears about security and crime, drug dealers and drug users, police failures and corruption, dangerous foreigners, unruly youth, the intersection between crime, witchcraft and technology and the insecurity and visibility of township life. It illustrates the way in which certain South Africans develop and transmit stories and rumours that helped them to make sense of the world they live in. </p>
<p>In considering the plasma gangs we can see how myth, uncertainty, rumour and strangeness inform South African cultures of fear: crime is not just frightening in and of itself but also because it connotes the presence of hidden forces that undermine the predictability of everyday life. This kind of “crime talk” is endemic in South Africa but oddly quiet in academic literature, which often associates fear of crime with whiteness and wealth.</p>
<h2>Making sense of fear</h2>
<p>The plasma gang scare is a compelling example of the power of narrative to condense and codify collective anxieties. A series of existing fears, spurred by the experiences of people living in a place that is both insecure and community-minded, both high risk and aspirational, layered on top of each other to produce a story that had a peculiar amount of social power. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover in black and white showing ominous clouds and metal structures. In red, the title Worrier State." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470304/original/file-20220622-25-wqnjag.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p>A tale of gangster criminality, personal danger, magic, violence and fear offered a way to foreground the contradictions that come with living in the South African township, a place that both defines residents as aspirational global citizens and imposes conditions of insecurity upon them. </p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from the author’s book Worrier State: Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South Africa <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/worrier-state/">available</a> from Wits University Press</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicky Falkof receives funding from the University of the Witwatersrand and the South African National Research Foundation</span></em></p>In 2013 stories emerged of gangs stealing plasma TV screens to use to make street drugs. It’s a myth, but it tells us something about South Africa’s social anxieties.Nicky Falkof, Associate professor, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1775902022-03-16T13:58:43Z2022-03-16T13:58:43ZXenophobia in South Africa: how family members influenced Nigerians to flee or stay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452161/original/file-20220315-13-1cpb015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The first group of 200 Nigerians repatriated from South Africa in 2019 arrives in Lagos. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early September 2019, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/09/17/they-have-robbed-me-my-life/xenophobic-violence-against-non-nationals-south">xenophobic attacks</a> escalated dramatically in two large South African cities, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/10/we-are-a-target-wave-of-xenophobic-attacks-sweeps-johannesburg">Johannesburg</a> and Pretoria, as well as adjoining areas. </p>
<p>Businesses belonging to African immigrants were looted, burned and destroyed. People were assaulted. Between January and September 2019 South Africa recorded 68 attacks and 18 people died. More than 147 shops were <a href="http://www.migration.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Factsheet-1-Xenohopbic-violence-incidents-in-SA_-Jan-Sept-2019.pdf">looted</a>. Immigrants in South Africa commonly hail from countries like Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Angola, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.</p>
<p>During the 2019 attacks Nigerians – especially those who had family members in South Africa – pressured the government to evacuate Nigerian migrants.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/afdi/aop/article-10.1163-18725465-bja10005/article-10.1163-18725465-bja10005.xml">study</a> I set out to establish to what extent these relatives contributed to Nigerian migrants’ decision to return. And what these return strategies revealed about how important families are to taking migration decisions.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>My <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/afdi/aop/article-10.1163-18725465-bja10005/article-10.1163-18725465-bja10005.xml">study</a> involved online interviews with Nigerian immigrants in South Africa who stayed put, as well as six people based in Nigeria with transnational family members in South Africa. </p>
<p>This was supplemented with analysis of secondary interviews with returnees conducted by three reporters from Nigeria’s <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/09/xenophobic-rage-our-story-returnees/"><em>Vanguard</em></a>, <a href="https://punchng.com/xenophobia-nigerians-return-from-south-africa-with-tears-sorrow-and-trauma/"><em>Punch</em></a>, <a href="https://tribuneonlineng.com/xenophobia-cant-end-in-south-africa-it-runs-in-the-citizens-blood-lawal-nigerian-returnee/"><em>Nigerian Tribune</em></a> and <em>the Nation</em> newspapers. The interviews were conducted at Murtala Muhammed International Airport as people returned home on state-provided aeroplanes. </p>
<p>The limitations of the data obtained through these sources included lacking firsthand contact with the returnees. In addition, the sample size was too small to make generalisations. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, my study was able to provide insights into the complex role that families play in these return decisions. The findings entrench the central role of family in decisions taken by migrants, whether they chose to stay put in South Africa or to return home.</p>
<h2>Those who returned</h2>
<p>Those migrants who accepted the Nigerian government’s offer of help to return home fell into three categories.</p>
<p>The first were people who had suffered direct losses to their businesses and livelihoods. Second, there were those who feared they might become victims. Third, those who were stranded in South Africa even before the xenophobic violence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-young-nigerians-risk-illegal-migration-to-find-their-eldorado-129996">Why young Nigerians risk illegal migration to find their 'Eldorado'</a>
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</em>
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<p>The strategies of return showed how the family was pivotal in reaching decisions of ‘who’, ‘how’, and ‘when’ to return. </p>
<p>In some instances affected Nigerian families in South Africa decided to reduce potential victimisation by sending their children to their families in Nigeria while the father and mother remained in South Africa. A 12-year female returnee from Ogun State expressed this as follows: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The crisis in town and the discrimination in my school become unbearable. So my parents decided that my sister and I should come back home to continue with our studies. We live in Johannesburg with our parents. People are dying and their shops are burnt. Our parents are still in South Africa. They will soon join us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chinasa, a 33 years old Nigerian, lived in Pretoria and returned with her child but her husband stayed in South Africa temporarily. She said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I came back with my child. My husband will join us later. I thank God I am home now; at least this is my country. I am ready to face the challenges here. I know it is not easy coming back home with nothing but my life is first.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Those who stayed</h2>
<p>But some families prevented family members returning. In some cases this involved husbands refusing to give their wives their approval to flee South Africa. Or refusing to give permission for children to return. One respondent explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some women who wished to leave (return to Nigeria) with their children were asked to present letters of consent from their husbands. Many of them who could not provide the letters were also said to have gone back home after spending several hours at the airport.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many Nigerians decided to remain in South Africa. This decision was affected by a myriad of factors including investments in the country and marriage. As one migrant stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is not as if I do not want to return home. But I have already established a business here. I have been here for 20 years and I have seven branches in seven provinces. I have four children, all graduates. Two of them are married to South Africans. I go home every December to spend Christmas with my parents and relatives. Tell me if I leave here where would I start from?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Beyond these two factors, family care responsibilities – needing to earn money in South Africa to support family – prevented many from deciding to return even if they wished to. </p>
<h2>What this means</h2>
<p>The findings underscore the importance of family in the decisions that migrants make. In some instances families facilitated the decision to return. In others they thwarted people who wanted to return home.</p>
<p>The study shows the important role family plays in influencing both migration intentions and actual practices. It also explained how predetermined aspirations of both migrants and their families contribute to their understanding of social realities and even xenophobic violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177590/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oludayo Tade does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A migrant’s dream is tied to the dreams of their family, the analysis found. The same is true of their actions.Oludayo Tade, Communication/Security Consultant, Sociologist/Criminologist/Victimologist and Facilitator, University of IbadanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1773912022-03-13T06:30:45Z2022-03-13T06:30:45ZTinder use in Cape Town reveals the paradox of modern dating<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450411/original/file-20220307-85648-19yt4qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dating apps are the new reality, but do they really make dating easier? My study suggests they complicate it further. </p>
<p>Questions about trust and online dating regularly crop up along with headlines about unpleasant online approaches, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/15/tinder-swindler-americans-romance-scam-con-fbi">scams</a> and even physical assaults when dates move offline. Still, dating apps like <a href="https://tinder.com">Tinder</a> remain hugely popular, downloaded and used mostly on cellphones to meet new people. In fact, they have received increasing traffic globally in recent years despite these bleak stories and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tinder-hinge-match-group-dating-apps-more-users-coronavirus-2020-8?IR=T">spurred</a> by COVID-induced lockdowns.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/35694">ethnographic research</a> in Cape Town, South Africa, shows that Tinder dating is riddled with contradictory feelings. As an anthropology scholar who is curious about intimacy and apps, I followed the dating journeys of 25 Tinder users for two years. </p>
<p>I soon found myself confronted with a paradox: even though using the app had become a mundane everyday practice, app users described meeting someone on Tinder as less “real” or less “authentic” than meeting someone offline. This may make it even more challenging to relate intimately in a time when trust is often likened to naivety or vulnerability. </p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>What I set out to explore was how the app becomes part of people’s lives in Cape Town. Meeting most of my research participants regularly, I was able to see how their approach to using the app changed over time. They were from different areas and cut across age groups (5 were under 25, 17 between 25-40 and 3 between 40-55). 14 of them identified as male, and 11 as female. The majority (75%) would be classified as “white” – I recruited most participants via a research profile on the app in a “whiter” area of a town, a lingering result of apartheid spatial segregation.</p>
<p>A Tinder profile can be set up in almost no time. After downloading the app and connecting it to a Facebook account, all that is left to do is select some profile pictures, perhaps write a short biography, and choose a few parameters (interested in men or women, within what age frame, and how far do you want to venture to meet them?). Encountering a potential match, users move their finger over the image of the person to the right if they are interested in them and left if not. If a person expresses interest back, you’re matched and can exchange messages.</p>
<p>Geographic proximity aside, who one sees on the app is further determined by an <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/7/18210998/tinder-algorithm-swiping-tips-dating-app-science">opaque algorithm</a> that Tinder is notoriously secretive about. Parent company Match Group Holdings owns 45 dating services worldwide and Tinder alone has been <a href="https://www.datingsitesreviews.com/article.php?story=tinder-releases-its-year-in-swipe-report">downloaded</a> more than 400 million times, producing 55 billion matches, a compelling impact on a lot of love lives.</p>
<h2>Common experiences</h2>
<p>Exploring what it means to use Tinder for the individuals in my study, I found that the app was regularly deleted. This was because of an accumulation of disappointments such as missing a “spark”, excitement thinning out and being “ghosted”(ignored).</p>
<p>Interestingly, though, users also kept re-downloading Tinder and changing their approaches by choosing different profile pictures, tweaking biographies and patterns of swiping. Swiping styles would depend on previous experiences and the kinds of intimacy they were currently looking for. Commonly, returning users would adopt a more casual approach and try to manage their expectations.</p>
<p>32-year-old PhD student Johana (not their real name), for instance, had been on and off Tinder for years but continued mustering hope of a meaningful connection. Most of her dates had been either mediocre or disillusioning. One looked nothing like his profile picture, another was much shyer offline than on and others were pushing for sex. Then suddenly she found herself on a captivating eight-hour-long date.</p>
<p>For days she waited for him to respond to a message she sent after their magic night. She tried everything to distract herself: she buried herself in her studies, met with friends, and switched her phone off – just to switch it back on and sneak another peek at it. When it had become clear he had no interest in pursuing anything further (and after deleting and re-downloading the app) Johana decided to approach Tinder dating differently.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-tinder-is-being-used-for-more-than-just-hook-ups-131256">How Tinder is being used for more than just hook-ups</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>She explained that she was now simply using Tinder as a means to connect and potentially have a “fun experience” that may or may not evolve into something worthwhile. Concluding that her directness on Tinder was interpreted as neediness by men, it seemed restraint might avoid further frustration and rejection. This affected how she was chatting, the kinds of meetings she arranged (daytime rather than night) as well as her biography, now briefly describing her as wanting to meeting new people. However, each intriguing connection would have the ultimate dating challenge resurface: how to establish a meaningful connection while managing the risk of being hurt. And that at Tinder’s fast, gamified swiping pace.</p>
<h2>The end of love?</h2>
<p>Tinder is marketed as liberating and empowering, especially for young women. The app promises the chance to create connections and meaning out of nowhere, to link people and places and fulfil romantic desires. And users in my research did embrace Tinder as a tool to meet people they would otherwise have been unlikely to meet. </p>
<p>However, grand romantic ideals seem to be replaced by uncertainty and strategies of detachment in the process. The app’s mostly vacant assurance of romantic magic helps explain why many users insisted that Tinder makes matches that lack meaning and “realness”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-scammers-like-anna-delvey-and-the-tinder-swindler-exploit-a-core-feature-of-human-nature-177289">How scammers like Anna Delvey and the Tinder Swindler exploit a core feature of human nature</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The idea that Tinder-initiated encounters lack authenticity is also in sync with the dominant view that embedding technologies into everyday activities (including the most intimate ones) is a damning symptom of the contemporary zeitgeist. </p>
<p>Undeterred by years of dating app use and numerous stories of relationships and friendships originating on apps, satiric <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/the-10-types-of-south-african-youll-meet-on-tinder/">blog entries</a> poking fun at Tinder clichés, Instagram accounts like <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tindernightmares/?hl=enas">Tinder Nightmares</a> as well as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307862744_Liquid_love_Dating_apps_sex_relationships_and_the_digital_transformation_of_intimacy">academic</a> <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/bodies-on-the-market/">literature</a> suggest that Tinder intimacy liquefies or ends love as we know it. </p>
<h2>All is not lost</h2>
<p>But after two years using an in-depth research approach, I came to the conclusion that, despite negative associations, dating apps have their place and their intimacies are not lesser than those originating elsewhere. Connections made via Tinder are neither different by nature, nor are they easier to navigate.</p>
<p>Regardless of the image of Tinder as a superficial platform and of Tinder fatigue, there was not just a persistent use of the app but also an enduring desire for connections that feel meaningful. The problem with Tinder is not that experiences are less real. At the root of frustrations is rather a one-dimensional view of “dating”, formatted as an eroticised encounter that requires an immediate and powerful spark.</p>
<p>From excitement to hurt, a lot happens in commodified, gamified dating app environments – notwithstanding the composed approaches adopted by their users. Thinking of emotions on the app as something that can be kept in check and of Tinder as something removed from “real life” may not only produce disappointing encounters in the moment, but it could also influence how people think about dating in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Davina Junck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dating on apps is the new reality, but do they really make dating easier? A Cape Town study finds Tinder complicates it further.Leah Davina Junck, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769212022-03-01T15:04:14Z2022-03-01T15:04:14ZIdle and frustrated: young South Africans speak about the need for recreational facilities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447589/original/file-20220221-28422-1eri5rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A gang member shows his tattoos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Per-Anders Pettersson/ Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recreational facilities play a crucial role in youth development. Research has <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11399146/RECREATIONAL_ACTIVITIES_IN_CRIME_PREVENTION_AND_REDUCTION">shown</a> that sports and fitness centres, community halls, parks, libraries, cultural centres and other facilities can keep young people out of harm’s way and reduce crime. </p>
<p>In South Africa, however, these facilities aren’t available to everyone and townships are hardest hit as they continue to have large numbers of unengaged and uninvolved youths who are not in employment, education or training – persons referred to as NEETs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.dhet.gov.za/Planning%20Monitoring%20and%20Evaluation%20Coordination/Fact%20Sheet%20on%20NEET%20-%202021.pdf">Research</a> on NEETs found that approximately 17 million people in South Africa between the ages of 15-60 were not in employment, education or training in the latter part of 2020 and more than half were below the age of 35. This significant number of idle youths has an impact on crime and community safety – as many African township youths are forced to achieve a sense of belonging through engaging in crime, violence, drug abuse and alcohol abuse. </p>
<p>Studies in South Africa have repeatedly <a href="https://socialwork.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/739">shown the link</a> between idle youths and troubled social behaviour, including drug abuse and violence. Some studies have also found that access to recreational facilities can help learners to leave gangs.</p>
<p><a href="https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/SWPR/article/view/7687">Our research</a> explored the intricate link between recreational facilities and gang involvement in marginalised communities. It sought to help youth development practitioners better understand the significant role played by recreational facilities in reducing gangs and anti-social behaviour. </p>
<p>We studied the experiences of youths from Nyanga in South Africa’s Western Cape province and Bophelong in Gauteng province, who perceived themselves as excluded from well-resourced and well-managed recreational facilities. We explored the way this exclusion had influenced youth gang violence in both areas, which are African townships characterised by unemployment, low quality education, poor housing conditions, high levels of crime and underdevelopment.</p>
<p>In both communities, young people lacked the facilities that could keep them occupied and off the streets. As a result some of them passed time by joining gangs and were then compelled to join in violent, criminal and anti-social behaviour. This ranged from “ukubloma emakhoneni” (being idle on street corners) to drug use and physical assault. </p>
<p>So the study revealed a link between youth, troubled behaviour and exclusion from recreational facilities. The findings show that youth development practitioners – such as those employed in the public sector, private sector and civil society to serve the needs of South African youths – have excluded African youths from actively and fully participating in recreational activities.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>Nyanga and Bophelong both battle with the issue of gangs, substance abuse and the subsequent illegal activities that are a direct consequence of gangs and drugs. </p>
<p>For our study, we interviewed 18 unemployed youths aged between 14 and 35 years, 18 former gang members between the ages of 14 and 35, and 36 practitioners working on the issue of youth and gang violence. We took an exploratory, qualitative approach to obtain an in-depth understanding of the participants’ perceptions of the topic.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of boys gathers at a club house, one sitting and entering information into a computer at an outside table, others standing around him or peering through the security gate of the clubhouse, which sports painted murals of football players." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A football programme in Khayelitsha township created to keep youths off the streets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Per-Anders Pettersson/ Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We asked questions about how a lack of access to well-resourced and well-managed recreational facilities has intentionally or unintentionally influenced the issue of gang violence. Other questions included the benefits of recreation in the prevention of youth delinquency, gang involvement and violence. </p>
<p>The responses showed a strong link between idleness and crime. Many young people said youths had too much time on their hands, “which is a recipe for mischief”. Especially former gang members attributed their involvement in gangs and crime to a lack of programmes that could keep them busy with developmental activities. One former gang member admitted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we had things to do, we wouldn’t be having all this time to be killing each other. We have too much time here, gangs and drugs keep us busy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>After school, we have nothing to do … We have too much free time and we are free to move around with guns and knives, not books.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some practitioners, too, noted that youths with too much time on their hands are vulnerable to social ills such as substance abuse, crime or gangs. These findings echo other <a href="https://doi.org/10.34051/p/2020.101">studies</a> about problem behaviour.</p>
<h2>Gangs take over neglected facilities</h2>
<p>The South African government has an <a href="http://www.nyda.gov.za/Portals/0/Downloads/Integrated%20Youth%20Development%20Strategy.pdf">Integrated Youth Development Strategy</a> which highlights the importance of programmes for youths from underprivileged backgrounds. But practitioners and young people in our study said that children growing up in townships joined gangs and abused substances because they lacked youth-friendly facilities. </p>
<p>A former gang member from Bophelong indicated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our homes are too small, they are suffocating us. There are no facilities for young people in this area, young people have nothing to do … We need facilities or else we join gangs and do drugs just to forget about our circumstances.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both practitioners and young people in our study pointed out that some of the few facilities that were available were either abandoned or unsupervised. As a result some of them had been used as a space for antisocial behaviour by gangs and drug lords. Instead of serving as areas of recreation to keep young people safe, these spaces were now traps for the vulnerable. As one practitioner put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then there was a park and then this park was captured by gangs simply because there was nobody who was owning the space, so they decided that the space is theirs.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Meeting real needs</h2>
<p>Recreational facilities should meet the real needs of marginalised young people. But our findings highlighted that they didn’t. This defeated the whole purpose because the facilities failed to attract the very people they were meant to serve. An unemployed youth from Nyanga said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sisteri, ekasi (Sister, the African township) is full of useful people doing useless things. A lot of talents and gifts are wasted ekasi because of limited resources, that’s why people end up using their gifts for wrong things like crime … There is a lot of frustration … for example go around Nyanga and look around, the facilities are not attractive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These findings indicate the importance of understanding specific youth needs and contexts to bring about targeted programmes that prevent and redress antisocial behaviour. Well-organised and well-managed recreational facilities play an important role in removing youths from the streets of marginalised, crime ridden communities and keeping them occupied with constructive activities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu receives funding from the Govan Mbeki Research and Development Centre (GMRDC) at the University of Fort Hare.</span></em></p>The study revealed a link between youth, troubled behaviour and a lack of access to recreational spaces in marginalised communities.G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu, Post-doctoral fellow, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769912022-02-11T15:20:17Z2022-02-11T15:20:17ZSouth Africans are feeling more insecure: do Ramaphosa’s plans add up?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445951/original/file-20220211-25-m1kr1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smoke rises from a building set on fire at the height of looting and violence in South Africa in July 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2022 <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2022-state-nation-address-10-feb-2022-0000">state of the nation address</a> underscored the problematic role that government agencies and others had played in <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/judicial-commission-enquiry-state-capture-report-part-1-4-jan-2022-0000">state capture</a> and the <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/content/report-expert-panel-july-2021-civil-unrest">2021 civil unrest</a>.</p>
<p>The unrest and looting that followed the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court sparked widespread violence and destruction of property, and resulted in the deaths of more than 350 people. Most of the violence took place in two economically important provinces – <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-20-making-sense-of-disorder-seven-days-of-anarchy-and-government-inaction-that-changed-south-africa/">KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-south-africans-been-on-a-looting-rampage-research-offers-insights-164571">Why have South Africans been on a looting rampage? Research offers insights</a>
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<p>The violence took place in the context of <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/downloads/april_june_2021_22_quarter1_presentation.pdf">rising levels of crime and unrest</a> related to poor service delivery, and <a href="https://cramsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1.-Spaull-N.-Daniels-R.-C-et-al.-2021-NIDS-CRAM-Wave-5-Synthesis-Report.pdf">deteriorating socioeconomic conditions</a> in poorer households. These were exacerbated by COVID-19 lockdown regulations. </p>
<p>The latest quarterly <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/downloads/july_to_september_2021_22_quarter2_presentation.pdf">crime statistics</a> showed that criminal offending has continued to increase. There’s also been a growing sense of insecurity fuelled by a spate of attacks. At the beginning of the year there was an arson attack on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/03/south-africa-man-charged-with-arson-over-blaze-at-parliament">parliament</a> which left the building gutted. This was followed by attacks on other buildings of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-02-06-arson-attempt-at-st-georges-cathedral-triggers-fears-over-political-instability/">symbolic significance</a>.</p>
<p>In his speech, Ramaphosa emphasised the dire levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment affecting many South Africans. He suggested these factors combined with the poor quality of intelligence and policing had contributed to the civil unrest in July 2021. Related to this, the ability of the police and the State Security Agency to keep South Africans safe had been compromised by <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2021-04-21-state-security-agency-had-structures-to-deal-with-opponents-of-state-capture/">state capture</a> and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-10-state-capture-2-0-south-africas-stirring-threat/">political interference</a>.</p>
<p>Looking to the future, Ramaphosa indicated that government would pursue a “new consensus” with a view to developing a “comprehensive social compact”. This would involve extensive partnerships with the private sector to tackle the country’s numerous socioeconomic and service delivery challenges. </p>
<p>However, as the July 2021 unrest and looting graphically showed, crime and lawlessness can debilitate and destroy government efforts to facilitate and support economic growth.</p>
<h2>President’s interventions</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa outlined a series of measures that the government would pursue in 2022 to address crime. These included leadership reforms within the security agencies, support for community policing forums and the implementation of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/vg/gbv/NSP-GBVF-FINAL-DOC-04-05.pdf">National Strategic Plan on Gender-based Violence and Femicide</a>.</p>
<p>The leadership changes are important, especially within the South African Police Service. The national police commissioner has been under a dark cloud for a number of years. He has shown unwillingness to cooperate with important investigations by the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-01-30-game-on-ipid-lays-second-criminal-charge-against-national-police-commissioner-sitole/">Independent Police Investigative Directorate</a>. And police response to the handling of the civil unrest was viewed as <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/exclusive-bheki-cele-blame-khehla-sitole-for-july-unrest-not-me-20211203">lacklustre</a>.</p>
<p>Experts and civil society have for years been calling for leadership changes in the <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-07-30-calls-for-top-cop-sitole-to-step-down-intensify/">South African Police Service</a> as well as the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">State Security Agency</a>. The <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/42/state-security-agency-ssa">agency</a> is tasked with flagging domestic and foreign threats, potential threats to national stability and the safety of the nation. </p>
<p>The appointment of highly competent, unbiased, and experienced police and intelligence leaders would address some of the key institutional failings. But more would need to be done to address the issue of trust. </p>
<p>A 2021 <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ad474-south_africans_trust_in_institutions_reaches_new_low-afrobarometer-20aug21.pdf">study</a> by Afrobarometer, the independent pan-African surveys network, indicated that 73% of South Africans trusted the police “a little” or “not at all”. Only 26% trusted the police “somewhat” or “a lot”. </p>
<p>By means of crude comparison a 2021 <a href="https://www.oecd.org/gov/trust-in-government.htm">Organisation for European Economic Cooperation and Development survey</a> of its member countries indicated that on average, 78% of populations trusted the police. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.slcdocs.com/ODHR/Website/Right%20to%20Safety/Literature/PoliceReformAndTheProblemOfTrust.pdf">Studies</a> of police reform have emphasised the importance of leadership change as a contributing factor to improving public faith. </p>
<p>A report of the <a href="https://www.westerncape.gov.za/police-ombudsman/files/atoms/files/khayelitsha_commission_report_0.pdf">Khayelitsha Commission on Inquiry</a> into poor levels of policing in Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township, in 2014 pointed out that such trust was mostly built and sustained at the police station level. It also depended on police behaviour towards residents.</p>
<p>This points to the importance of involving communities. The government has long been aware of the need for cooperation between police and communities in building trust. The <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act68of1995.pdf">South African Police Service Act</a> in fact requires that the police service establish and cooperate with <a href="http://www.policesecretariat.gov.za/downloads/policies/community_policing.pdf">community policing forums</a> in all policing precincts.</p>
<p>The forums were envisaged as representative committees of communities mandated to promote communication and cooperation between the communities and the police. They’d also engage in joint problem-solving between civilians and the police. </p>
<p>They were also meant to facilitate transparency and accountability of the police, and improve delivery of police services.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.westerncape.gov.za/assets/departments/community-safety/cpf_research_on_the_design_of_standard_operating_models_for_neighbourhood_watches_and_community_police_forums_2016.pdf">research</a> (with other policing experts) has highlighted the important roles that community policing forums play in building and sustaining partnerships between the police and local communities.</p>
<p>The forums were found to be undertaking a variety of positive actions that contributed to preventing crime and improving community safety. </p>
<p>But their role has often been hamstrung. A <a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/29392/">parliamentary hearing</a> on community police forums in 2019 identified numerous difficulties, especially in poorer areas. These included: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>inconsistent and often problematic ways members were elected </p></li>
<li><p>a lack of office space at police stations to accommodate the forums </p></li>
<li><p>inadequate support and funding </p></li>
<li><p>misunderstandings about the mandate and role of the forums.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It’s encouraging that Ramaphosa highlighted the need to reinvigorate and support community policing forums. But considerably more resources and expertise will be required to make them more effective. This is particularly true in high crime areas.</p>
<p>It was also encouraging that Ramaphosa specified that the government would continue to prioritise the scourge of <a href="https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/gender-based-violence-in-south-africa">gender-based violence</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.whatworks.co.za/resources">Studies</a> show that the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/vg/gbv/NSP-GBVF-FINAL-DOC-04-05.pdf">presidential plan</a> on this issue, if properly implemented, could result in reductions in femicide and the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of women and girls in South Africa. </p>
<h2>The need to prioritise fighting crime</h2>
<p>I believe that the interventions set out by Ramaphosa will likely lead to an improvement in safety and security in South Africa. But there is a caveat: a more comprehensive approach is required if the country is to see a significant positive change.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the government has been engaged in an intense process of developing an <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202102/44173gen50.pdf">Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy</a> over the past ten years. This strives for a “whole of government and society” approach to the problem of crime. It also clearly specifies the prevention roles and responsibilities of all levels of government. It is essential that this strategy be prioritised too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guy Lamb is Commissioner with the National Planning Commission.</span></em></p>As the July 2021 unrest and looting graphically showed, crime and lawlessness can debilitate and destroy government efforts to facilitate and support economic growth.Guy Lamb, Criminologist / Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1744802022-02-03T14:25:26Z2022-02-03T14:25:26ZHow a neighbourhood watch WhatsApp group shaped fears in a Cape Town suburb<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443996/original/file-20220202-25-b3uyyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Trust in state institutions to protect citizens is a prerequisite for sharing social spaces. This trust is corrupted in South Africa, where there are <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7208/9780226425078/html">persistent anxieties</a> that crime and violence are out of control.</p>
<p>Despite considerable <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=14484">public</a> spending on the police and security sector, the country has an enormous <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/06/08/south-africa-insecurity-sees-rapid-growth-of-private-security-sector/">private</a> security economy, as well as volunteer-based organisations for social protection like <a href="https://www.capetown.gov.za/Family%20and%20home/safety-in-the-home/community-policing/neighbourhood-watch">neighbourhood watch groups</a>.</p>
<p>Decisions over access to public spaces, who is welcome, valued and protected – whose lives matter – is, of course, a global question. And it’s <a href="https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/race-after-technology">become apparent</a> in recent years that social media, with its ubiquitous hashtags, opaque algorithms and content moderation practices, can equally firm social divides. </p>
<p>My research on a neighbourhood watch group in <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/the-top-things-to-see-and-do-in-observatory-cape-town/">Observatory</a>, a relatively affluent suburb of Cape Town, investigated what relationships of trust and distrust look like in this context.</p>
<p>The neighbourhood watch group had recently been revived. It had been established to decrease a feeling of vulnerability to crime through monthly strategy meetings and neighbourhood patrols.</p>
<p>It turned out, though, that patrols often took place in the form of ‘couch patrolling’ (making observations from the living room window and following social media communication). It also quickly became evident that commonplace technologies like <a href="https://www.whatsapp.com">WhatsApp</a>, integrated into surveillance routines, played a notable part in shaping encounters in the suburb. </p>
<p>The main question I posed in my study, which is now the subject of a <a href="https://www.langaa-rpcig.net/cultivating-suspicion-an-ethnography/">book</a>, <em>Cultivating Suspicion: An Ethnography</em>, was how suspicion transpires in the neighbourhood watch. I describe how desires to feel safe as a group, recountings of the same crime stories, and internalised fears become entangled in everyday surveillance practices.</p>
<p>Social fears are important to consider not just in South African cities, which were the scene of forced removals of the unwanted and supposedly dangerous during the segregationist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> regime. But also for other urban spaces around the globe where gaping social divisions leap to the eye.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>Nestled beneath the iconic Table Mountain, Observatory is a residential area close to the city centre and the freeway, with a busy strip of cafes, bars and restaurants. Here one meets longtime residents, national and international students of the nearby university, tourists, workers and others coming in and out of the suburb daily.</p>
<p>Affectionately shortened to ‘Obs’, Observatory is usually described as bohemian and somehow different. Its liberal image is also owed to the ‘grey area’ status it had during apartheid, with different race groups <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474474009105052">mixing in public spaces</a> despite the country’s laws. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A view of a street with shops and quaint, old-fashioned houses, a mountain towering in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444008/original/file-20220202-15-g6l06p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Observatory, Cape Town.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Despite private security in the area, a supplement to the police force and financed by property owners, the neighbourhood watch group was considered necessary for reducing crime. Already a resident, I announced my interest as a researcher and joined the group in the hopes of learning what motivates its members. As an anthropologist, I wanted to know more about the dynamics of this suburb and how crime anxieties manifest. I began with the question of what people were looking for on patrols – who was considered suspicious?</p>
<p>I spent a year researching the fear of crime in Observatory. Attending meetings, joining patrols, listening to stories, interviewing key persons such as the manager of the private security staff, and occasionally accompanying the police on their drives, I could observe how fear became part of everyday practice.</p>
<h2>The findings</h2>
<p>The membership form explained that foot patrols were to be the main purpose of the neighbourhood watch. But few of the quickly growing members actually attended these. Most simply attended monthly meetings to voice their concerns.</p>
<p>For the most part, these members settled into ‘couch patrolling’. This involved watching the neighbourhood less formally, for instance from their house windows or on their way to the shop. They also followed the content of the active neighbourhood watch social media channels. In addition to WhatsApp groups (linked to police and private security), information was also shared via <a href="https://about.facebook.com/company-info/">Facebook</a> and email. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cctv-surveillance-poses-a-threat-to-privacy-in-south-africa-97418">How CCTV surveillance poses a threat to privacy in South Africa</a>
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<p>But what was the information shared in these groups? What were people looking for when patrolling physically or making sense of what they found on these social media channels? Who was the suspect that may be picked up by the police as a result of local surveillance practices?</p>
<p>My findings show that the neighbourhood watch group as a collective would spread suspicion in certain directions – not least of all through the use of social media apps. Images of ‘suspects’ that were circulated and recycled via different avenues (WhatsApp, Facebook, email and anecdotes) typically fell within the racial categories ‘Black’ and ‘Coloured’ and were marked by poverty.</p>
<p>Snapshots would capture people caught in the act of doing something that was judged as suspicious, although suspicious behaviour did not always amount to an actual crime. I would regularly wake up to rough descriptions of people on the WhatsApp groups, which included substitutes for racial terms such as Charlie (for Coloured), Bravo (for Black), and Whiskey (for White), with Charlie by far the most commonly used.</p>
<p>As some neighbourhood watch members criticised, these desriptions of ‘suspects’ were often not accompanied by an explanation as to why they were being flagged as being ‘up to no good’. </p>
<p>The answer I received to my question of what people are looking for on patrol was usually described as a gut feeling. Lively intellectual debates in meetings and digital chats did not change the fact that what kept resurfacing via the different platforms as descriptions of suspects was becoming concrete. </p>
<p>Suspected criminals were formed into an image of a suspect that was commonly male, dark-skinned, marked by meagre resources, and, understandably, avoiding exposure to the public eye.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Surveillance has rightfully become associated with innovative digital tools and is considered an issue of larger power structures. Yet, there are all kinds of less obvious and yet very problematic technologies at play that should not be overlooked – such as everyday surveillance using just our own bodies and cellphones.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover showing the title and author - Cultivating Suspicion: An Ethnography by Leah Davina Junck - and an illustration of an aerial view of a suburban area, colourised." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444031/original/file-20220202-27-lz2fgj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Langaa RPCIG</span></span>
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<p>Strategies developed by the neighbourhood watch group in Observatory to feel more in charge in what they felt was an out-of-control crime situation also meant maintaining a firm distinction between oneself and ‘the other’. Consequently, monitoring the suburb had a deep impact on what kinds of relationships became possible and whose humanity (namely the residents’) was prioritised over the needs of others (the declared suspects).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Davina Junck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The study showed couch patrolling was more common than foot patrols - with social media influencing fears and suspicions.Leah Davina Junck, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692692021-11-17T13:13:33Z2021-11-17T13:13:33ZCrime control: what South Africa can learn from China<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431478/original/file-20211111-25-1jwmupv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Esther Poon/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Comparative criminology is not just an academic exercise. In view of Africa’s ongoing and deepening <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/where-africa-china-relationship-headed-2021">engagement</a> with China, it is worth asking what South Africa can learn from that culture when it comes to some of its most pressing social problems. </p>
<p>The People’s Republic of China has been <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/crime-rate-statistics">very successful</a> at crime control. For their parts, Western jurisdictions, have demonstrably neglected rehabilitation and <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivism-rates-by-country">failed dismally</a> at resettling former criminals.</p>
<p>With this in mind, I asked in a <a href="http://ojs.tgwsak.co.za/index.php/TGW/article/view/272/259">recent paper</a> what lessons South Africa might take away from a post-Mao era Chinese criminal justice system in terms of crime control.</p>
<p>The cue for my thinking is an <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18243714W/Prisons_around_the_world">observation</a> by Frederick Allen, a US comparative criminologist. Cross-cultural learning, he said, “provides us with an opportunity to evaluate and understand our own system. It gives us a perspective that is difficult to gain from within our own system.”</p>
<p>I collected and coded data on rehabilitation and resettlement practices of criminal offenders in the People’s Republic of China. This presented a road map for their re-entry into society. The themes selected ranged from resettlement to incarceration. </p>
<p>Here I consider one essential take-away from China to transplant to South Africa. That individual responsibility for crime should be balanced with an understanding of the impact of structural oppressions on crime trends. It’s known, for example, that the structural violence embedded in racism, inequality and unemployment fuels crime.</p>
<p>My study was informed by criminologist John Braithwaite’s <a href="http://johnbraithwaite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/1999_Crime-Shame-and-Reintegratio.pdf">seminal distinction</a> between “stigmatising shaming” and “integrative shaming” cultures. He noted that different cultures have different ways to shame people who have been in prison. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ex-offenders-should-be-made-prison-wardens-in-south-africa-heres-why-162316">Ex-offenders should be made prison wardens in South Africa. Here's why</a>
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<hr>
<p>In societies like the US and South Africa, they are often discriminated against and stigmatised. This drives them away from resettlement and into the arms of criminal sub-cultures. In countries such as China and Japan everything possible is done to resettle ex-offenders and reintegrate them into society. </p>
<p>The argument is that the flowering of this kind of integrative shaming (between 1949 and 1996) in China <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248967367_Crime_prevention_in_a_communitarian_society_Bang-jiao_and_Tiao-jie_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China">reduced recidivism rates</a> – the likelihood of former criminals re-offending. </p>
<p>It is possible to intersperse the data from China with observations on how these could complement existing rehabilitation trends in South African corrections. My findings represent an effort to grow such features in South Africa’s harsh, stigmatising shaming culture. </p>
<h2>Individuals and structural oppression</h2>
<p>For the Chinese, sustainable rehabilitation of ex-offenders is not first prize. In this culture, crime prevention must start at a young age when the correct values should be absorbed by children. </p>
<p>The idea of individual responsibility for crime, however, should be balanced against an understanding of the impact which structural forms of oppression have on crime as triggers. These include inequality, unemployment, poverty, racism and sexism. </p>
<p>As Allen <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/096466399400300407">explains</a>, the Chinese reframe the idea of individual responsibility within a pragmatic perspective: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Responsibility for deviant behaviour is usually attributed to the external environment … Consequently, the entire rehabilitation process is based on the task of re-educating the offender … to respond to the environment within a socialist orientation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even in the West, criminologists such as <a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/jreiman.cfm">Jeffrey Reiman</a> and the much-cited <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Quinney">Richard Quinney</a> insist on an accounting of the state’s responsibility for creating and maintaining these structural triggers. For example, Robert Weiss has <a href="https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/1854529">pointed out</a> that the most consistent relationship with crime is not between unemployment and imprisonment or even between crime and imprisonment. It’s between inequality and imprisonment. </p>
<p>This idea is demonstrated by <a href="https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/1854529">research findings</a> in Japan and the Netherlands (and Poland before 1990). Regarding the situation in South Africa, the well-known French economist <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/transcript-of-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture-2015">Thomas Piketty</a> has recently argued that in terms of ownership inequality and income inequality, South Africa is at the “top of its class”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uOdIfpRS5CE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Thomas Picketty on South Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>South Africa needs to give serious attention to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-wont-become-less-violent-until-its-more-equal-103116">addressing inequality</a> if it’s committed to combating its runaway <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/514708/south-africas-latest-crime-stats-everything-you-need-to-know-3/">crime rates</a>. But not uncritically so.</p>
<h2>A critical eye on China</h2>
<p>The Chinese have very little patience with re-offending or recidivism. Every year thousands of re-offenders are <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/act50/5740/2017/en/">executed</a> for crimes ranging from petty offences to serious crimes such as murder, robbery and rape. South Africa has an unsustainably high and rising <a href="https://www.umes.edu/uploadedFiles/_WEBSITES/AJCJS/Content/VOL12.1.%20MURHULA%20FINAL.pdf">rate of re-offending</a> (86-94%). This is one of the highest in the world, so the Chinese management of re-offenders should be of particular interest. </p>
<p>Even though the death penalty is outlawed in South Africa, there might be a case for re-introducing it under carefully considered, selected circumstances. A notable Chinese innovation is the imposition of the death penalty suspended for two years. This is to give the offender an opportunity to reform. Nuance is everything.</p>
<p>Similarly, South Africa is a country suffering under endemic and systemic <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">trends of corruption</a>. A one-off appeal to the <a href="http://english.court.gov.cn">People’s Court</a> in Beijing is acceptable, but playing for time and wasting valuable judicial resources (as in <a href="https://time.com/6078187/south-africa-courts-ruling-against-jacob-zuma/">the case</a> of South Africa’s former President Jacob Zuma) would not be tolerated in China. </p>
<p>But despite an admirable rate of 6%-8% recidivism at the turn of the century, post-Maoist People’s Republic of China is an authoritarian, post-communist, hyper-consumerist society. So South Africans might be cautioned to tolerate a certain level of recidivism. Finland, a Western socialist democracy, for example, has a very acceptable <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474512473883">rate of recidivism</a> hovering around 30%.</p>
<h2>Takeaways</h2>
<p>There are many valuable takeaways from the Chinese criminal justice system. These could assist and enrich crime control strategies in South Africa. I explored just one in this article. In my <a href="http://ojs.tgwsak.co.za/index.php/TGW/article/view/272/259">research paper</a> I aim for a nuanced, profound and careful calibration of these ideas for transplanting to South Africa. </p>
<p>The idea of rehabilitation may have become almost redundant under South African conditions. But these ideas derived from the Chinese in the name of cross-cultural comparative criminology could conceivably assist effective crime control in a society still reeling from the trauma of conflicts, past and present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169269/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Casper Lӧtter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>China has been very successful at crime control while South Africa has neglected rehabilitation and failed dismally at resettling ex-offenders.Casper Lӧtter, Research fellow, North-West UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1122432019-02-26T14:35:42Z2019-02-26T14:35:42ZWhy a guaranteed jobs scheme in South Africa would pay for itself<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260429/original/file-20190222-39858-7itg4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa has one of the worst rates of youth unemployment in the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his first State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2019-state-nation-address-7-feb-2019-0000">posed the key question</a>: has South Africa built a society where the injustices of the past no longer define the lives of the present? </p>
<p>The answer is clearly no.</p>
<p>Among the biggest injustices is unemployment. Last year the <a href="http://www.dpru.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/36/Publications/Other/2018-06-13%20Factsheet%2021%20-%20Year%20ended%202017Q2.pdf">unemployment rate worsened</a> to over 27%. If discouraged workers are included, it’s as high as 40% – 9.3 million working-age South Africans. Youth unemployment is particularly dire: of 10.3 million 15 - 24 year-old South Africans, over 67% were unemployed. </p>
<p>This is one of the worst rates of youth unemployment in the world. Most of these unemployed youth – <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/official-unemployment-rate-rises-to--272--statssa">over three million</a> – are categorised as NEET: “not in employment, education, or training”.</p>
<p>Wages from work remain by far the most important source of income for poor household members. The consequences of a vicious cycle of structural unemployment are devastating.</p>
<p>Current measures to reduce unemployment are clearly inadequate. But evidence from countries such as Argentina and India suggest that guaranteed employment policies have immediate, positive benefits. This includes reducing poverty and hunger, and strengthening social inclusion, especially for women and other disempowered workers.</p>
<p>The cost of South Africa implementing a guaranteed employment scheme – ensuring everyone who is not working, or has given up looking for work a job that pays the minimum wage – would be R380 billion. </p>
<p>But I would argue that it would pay for itself in terms of increased economic growth and – over the longer term – reduced inequality and crime. And initial costs could easily be paid for with tightening controls on tax evasion. </p>
<h2>Short-term versus long-term</h2>
<p>The country’s current job creation plans have rates that are far too slow. The Presidential Jobs Summit – if fully implemented – would nearly double the number of jobs currently being created: as this is now about 60,000, these measures aim to create 120,000 jobs per year. By my calculations, even if all the jobs being planned went to young people who aren’t in employment, education, or training, it would take 25 years to seriously tackle their unemployment.</p>
<p>For all the unemployed, it would take at least 50 years.</p>
<p>Nor can South Africa rely on economic growth to create more jobs. For more than a decade, the GDP growth rate has remained below 4%; there’s little chance of it exceeding this level <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/gdp-growth-annual">for the foreseeable future</a>.</p>
<p>The problem has received official recognition for some time. But what, in reality, can be done?</p>
<p>This is where guaranteed employment comes into play.</p>
<p>It has already been shown to work over the short term in the Global South. For example, nearly two decades ago, Argentina’s federally funded and locally administered Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados (Programme for Unemployed Male and Female Heads of Households) offered guaranteed employment of at least four hours a day in community created jobs to the unemployed heads of households. </p>
<p>The scheme <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137313997_4">successfully reduced poverty</a> as well as feelings of powerlessness and social marginalisation, especially among its (majority) female participants. But it was phased out after three years and replaced with more traditional social spending efforts.</p>
<p>In India the 2005 <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/decc/82458cbb1b8cf6849cd0b693b0e64a00a40c.pdf">National Rural Employment Guarantee</a> gives up to 100 days of guaranteed paid employment per year to workers from rural households. Implementation varies regionally. But it has been found to increase earnings in low-income households by 13% and has also reduced the gender pay gap. </p>
<p>Direct benefits, including increases in wage income, were found to exceed program-related transfers. This was particularly true for some of the most socially marginalised groups. In addition, women in particular reported benefiting through increased food security and a better ability to avoid hazardous work.</p>
<p>What would happen if the state were to guarantee jobs to all South African workers willing to take them? </p>
<h2>The cost</h2>
<p>Let’s assume these will all be full-time, national minimum wage jobs, paying R3500 per month. For the 9 million workers that include the officially unemployed and those discouraged from seeking work or in unstable or part-time work, it would cost nearly R380 billion – more than twice the R150 billion spent on the country’s social grants, which benefit one third of the population. </p>
<p>Can South Africa really afford R380 billion spent on an additional welfare provision?</p>
<p>Many economists would probably concur with Ramaphosa that “spending our way out of our economic troubles” would be at odds with “setting the economy on a path of recovery.”</p>
<p>But there are strong reasons to think that labour-intensive employment creation may actually be one of the fastest and most durable ways of setting the economy on a path of recovery. </p>
<p>The reason is that reducing unemployment has a positive, direct, short-term effect on economic growth. <a href="https://www.southafricanmi.com/gdp-growth-estimator.html">Some estimates suggest</a> that one percentage point of growth could be added for every 5 percentage point drop in unemployment. Thus, while employing 5% of the unemployed costs about R52.5 billion, 1% GDP growth adds R55 billion.</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/stockhammer-on-inequality.pdf">several reasons</a> for this. One is that, because low-wage workers spend a far higher proportion of their income on locally produced goods than their higher wage counterparts, this money would circulate further in the national economy than any large capital expenditure project. And once incentivised to invest, South African firms bring capacity utilisation back towards its normal level.</p>
<p>There are, moreover, at least three additional arguments in favour of a full-employment policy. </p>
<h2>Enlightened self-interest</h2>
<p>The first is that like inequality, violent crime <a href="http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/unemployment-and-violent-crime-2007-02-09">correlates with unemployment</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa has the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-45547975">fifth highest homicide rate in the world</a>. The <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jid.1721">national cost</a> of violence in South Africa is equivalent to 19% of the country’s GDP – the 16th highest rate in the world. Total violence <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/general/126263/how-much-money-violent-crime-costs-south-africa-every-year/">containment spending</a> in South Africa cost US$66.7 billion (R989 billion) in 2016.</p>
<p>Second, a full-employment policy would give a powerful impetus to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-search-for-a-national-minimum-wage-laid-bare-south-africas-faultlines-69382">reducing inequality</a>, which in turn would reduce crime. </p>
<p>The third, and strongest, reason for full employment is economic justice: a goal that can readily be combined with <a href="http://aidc.org.za/download/climate-change/OMCJ-booklet-AIDC-electronic-version.pdf">climate justice</a>. Anyone who understands that the dignity of work provides individual and societal value that a social grant cannot, understands that millions of the “Born Free” generation are not truly free. </p>
<p>The virtuous cycle of employment-led growth would more than pay for itself over time. </p>
<p>In this light, the question surely should not be, can South Africa afford to massively reduce unemployment? But rather, can South Africa truly afford not to do so?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112243/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Lawrence does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Guaranteeing unemployed South Africans a job at the minimum wage would have a range of positive outcomes for the economy.Andrew Lawrence, Visiting Research Scholar, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/864292017-10-31T09:27:25Z2017-10-31T09:27:25ZSouth African crime stats show police struggling to close cases<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192606/original/file-20171031-18704-6hs01g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's Police Minister Fikile Mbalula's biggest challenge is to ensure that criminals are brought to book.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/161715/south-africas-latest-crime-stats-everything-you-need-to-know/">latest crime statistics</a> released by the country’s police service reflect a continued long-term decline in levels of non-violent property crime, a possible stabilisation following four years of increase in murder, and a sustained rise in violent property crime. </p>
<p>More worryingly, a closer look at case outcomes points to the toll that the leadership <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-10-24-anarchy-in-crime-intelligence-services-says-mbalula/">crisis</a> in crime intelligence and the <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/money-police-forensic-services-diverted-home-affairs/">struggling</a> detective service are beginning to take on investigative capacity. </p>
<p>Each of the last four national police commissioners has been removed on suspicion of corruption or being otherwise unfit for office. These and other senior criminal justice system appointments are now widely <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2017-06-05-zumas-free-hand-a-disaster-for-policing/">seen</a> as sites of factional disputes within the ruling African National Congress (ANC), or as attempts by the powerful to avoid facing criminal responsibility for their actions. </p>
<p>Some commentators, such as the Institute for Security Studies and Corruption Watch, are increasingly <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-07-18-iss-today-its-time-for-the-right-top-cops-in-south-africa/#.WfbLstDXaUk">concerned</a> that the series of poor appointments and lack of leadership stability are having a direct impact on crime levels. </p>
<p>I believe that changing socioeconomic conditions are likelier culprits. There is undoubtedly a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/073401689301800203">relationship</a> between economic deprivation and crime, although the exact nature of the relationship is a matter of endless debate. It would be surprising if South Africa’s <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/statssa-say-poverty-in-sa-increased-10893757">increase</a> in poverty since 2011 were not putting upward pressure on violent crime. </p>
<p>Whether or not police leadership can have a real impact on crime levels, they do affect the services delivered to victims.</p>
<h2>Justice increasingly delayed</h2>
<p>In the last five years, the number of cases of aggravated robbery recorded by the police rose by almost 40%. Meanwhile the number of convictions for aggravated robbery rose by just 5%. </p>
<p>The number of cases in which investigation has not been finalised is also showing worrying trends. “Incomplete” murder and residential burglary complaints are at 10 year highs. Despite the declining total volume of crime reported to the police, the investigative backlog is growing.</p>
<p>This is a sign of justice increasingly delayed and possibly denied.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192610/original/file-20171031-18686-1rke47y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Growing backlog.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also a sign of an organisation struggling to meet demand for its services. </p>
<p>The new police minister, Fikile Mbalula, must work to rapidly improve investigative performance. To the extent that the police can be expected to prevent crime, their chief strategy should be solving cases. If they can’t do that, they have little hope of stemming the robbery tide.</p>
<h2>Limits to the data</h2>
<p>The South African Police Service crime statistics are a rich source of knowledge about the crime situation in the country. But they need to be handled with care. This means remembering at least three things.</p>
<p>First, not all crimes are reported to the police, or recorded by them. This means that the official figures are an under-count. The extent of this varies by crime type. For example, we know from surveys that sexual offences are rarely reported, while vehicle thefts are almost invariably reported. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192611/original/file-20171031-18711-10gvh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bad news.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, some victims and communities are more likely to report to police, and they’re more likely to be taken seriously by the police. For example, recent survey data shows that white South Africans are far more <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412016.pdf#page=45">likely</a> to report a theft to the police and to be <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412016.pdf#page=29">satisfied</a> by the police response to their burglary than other population groups. They are also more likely to be insured, which is a key <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412016.pdf#page=25">determinant</a> of reporting of crimes like vehicle theft. </p>
<p>This means that a theft in a largely white, relatively prosperous area is considerably more likely to make it into the official police stats than a theft in an area dominated by other population groups, where satisfaction with police performance is lower, and where few have the incentive of claiming from insurance. </p>
<p>Third, crime statistics always need to be read in the context of other available data. Statistics South Africa’s annual <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=10521">Victims of Crime Survey</a> is an essential companion document to the crime statistics, providing some of the necessary context on just how partial and distorted the official figures are.</p>
<h2>The stats in brief</h2>
<p>Declines have continued in most non-violent property crimes like burglary and vehicle theft. These trends are supported by data from the Victims of Crime Survey. They are noteworthy, given that non-violent property crimes still constitute the bulk of crime in the country. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the violent property crime situation continues to show serious deterioration. Aggravated robberies have risen by almost 30% in the last five years. Rates of carjacking have increased by about 13% in the last year alone. They are at risk of reclaiming the heights last seen in the late 1990s. House robbery rates have doubled since 2003. </p>
<p>So, although the average person in South Africa is increasingly unlikely to lose their property to crime, the crime they experience is increasingly likely to involve physical, sometimes violent interaction with criminals. </p>
<p>Although murder figures increased by about 1.8% in the last year, in the same time the national population increased by about 1.7%. The murder rate per capita thus saw no significant change. This possible stabilisation is an improvement on the marked increases of the previous four years, but falls short of the decline needed to return the country to a longer positive <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-show-south-africa-has-not-become-more-violent-since-democracy-62444">trajectory</a>. </p>
<p>This is sorely necessary, given that someone in the country is murdered about every 28 minutes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86429/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation.</span></em></p>Poor leadership in crime intelligence and a struggling detective service are affecting the ability of South Africa - where a murder happens every 28 minutes - to bring down crime.Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649122016-09-09T09:55:29Z2016-09-09T09:55:29ZMurder on the rise as South Africa fails to stem high crime rates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137077/original/image-20160908-25244-1ftrlu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa needs to urgently work out why its high rate of fatal violence is not slowing. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa struggles with very high levels of crime and violence. Take the crime statistic on murder rates. The country ranks in the top 10 worst countries that report crime statistics according to the most recent <a href="https://data.unodc.org/">data</a> from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.</p>
<p>Crime rate comparisons between countries are fraught with challenges and should be understood as broad indications rather than accurate quantitative relationships. Nevertheless, South Africa by any measure has a serious crime problem.</p>
<p>What insights can be gleaned from the latest annual crime statistics <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php">released</a> by South Africa’s police?</p>
<h2>What the numbers say</h2>
<p>To draw meaningful conclusions about longer term trends it is necessary to use rates per 100,000 people in the population. For the last few years South Africa’s police force has opted to publicise only the raw figures for the number of crimes recorded. This doesn’t <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2016-09-02-why-crime-rates-are-more-useful-than-absolute-numbers-in-tracking-changes-over-time/">account</a> for population growth over time, or differences in population sizes between regions or towns. </p>
<p>The latest numbers had this to reveal about the five key crime types that are particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-to-look-for-in-south-africas-troubling-crime-statistics-64060">worth watching</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Murder rate:</strong> this has risen nationally for the fourth year in a row, from 33 per 100,000 in 2014/2015 to 34 per 100,000 last year. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137056/original/image-20160908-25244-3h1gva.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137056/original/image-20160908-25244-3h1gva.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137056/original/image-20160908-25244-3h1gva.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137056/original/image-20160908-25244-3h1gva.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137056/original/image-20160908-25244-3h1gva.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137056/original/image-20160908-25244-3h1gva.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137056/original/image-20160908-25244-3h1gva.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>More concerning than the overall high number of murders, which is <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-show-south-africa-has-not-become-more-violent-since-democracy-62444">by no means</a> a new development, is the fact that its rate of increase has accelerated. Whereas the rise from 2013/2014 to 2014/2015 was by 2.6%, the rise from 2014/2015 to 2015/2016 was by 3.1%. This suggests that the recent increase in fatal violence is not slowing and that South Africa may be in for several more years of increase. The country urgently needs to work out why these increases are happening.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137057/original/image-20160908-25237-1yjtxn1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137057/original/image-20160908-25237-1yjtxn1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137057/original/image-20160908-25237-1yjtxn1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137057/original/image-20160908-25237-1yjtxn1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137057/original/image-20160908-25237-1yjtxn1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137057/original/image-20160908-25237-1yjtxn1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137057/original/image-20160908-25237-1yjtxn1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong>Murder rate in Cape Town:</strong> after five bad years, this may finally have turned the corner. Cape Town’s murder rate declined from 63 per 100,000 last year to 62 this year. This is a positive sign, but there is clearly a lot more work to be done. It is still at almost twice the national rate and among the highest in the <a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-world.html">world</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137058/original/image-20160908-25253-btpz6h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137058/original/image-20160908-25253-btpz6h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137058/original/image-20160908-25253-btpz6h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137058/original/image-20160908-25253-btpz6h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137058/original/image-20160908-25253-btpz6h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137058/original/image-20160908-25253-btpz6h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137058/original/image-20160908-25253-btpz6h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong>Aggravated robbery trends:</strong> The national rates of residential and non-
residential robbery showed no decline although the rate at which they increased was smaller than it had been in years. Following the major increases between 2005/2006 and 2008/2009, it seems that relative stability in these crimes may have been reached. Turning them to a decline looks increasingly possible. The police should take heart.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137059/original/image-20160908-25266-13cne3k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137059/original/image-20160908-25266-13cne3k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137059/original/image-20160908-25266-13cne3k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137059/original/image-20160908-25266-13cne3k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137059/original/image-20160908-25266-13cne3k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137059/original/image-20160908-25266-13cne3k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137059/original/image-20160908-25266-13cne3k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong>Burglary:</strong> Recorded rates of burglary have continued their long and fairly steady decline and are now about a third lower than they were 15 years ago. This should be a comfort given how much this crime contributes to public fear. It does, however, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412014.pdf#page=75">appear</a> that people may have become less inclined to report this crime to the police. The <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=2643&PPN=P0341&SCH=6368">upcoming</a> Victims of Crime Survey should be watched closely to see if this trend continues and to what extent it may be contributing to recorded rates of decline.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137185/original/image-20160909-13348-1yab0q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137185/original/image-20160909-13348-1yab0q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137185/original/image-20160909-13348-1yab0q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137185/original/image-20160909-13348-1yab0q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137185/original/image-20160909-13348-1yab0q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137185/original/image-20160909-13348-1yab0q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137185/original/image-20160909-13348-1yab0q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong>Drug-related crime and illegal possession of firearms:</strong> There has been a decrease in the recorded rates of drug-related crime for the first time in more than 20 years.</p>
<p>This could be the police’s new <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2016/05/19/polices-back-to-basics-plan-yielding-good-results-acting-commissioner-says">back to basics</a> plan in action. Acting head of police Lieutenant General <a href="http://www.gov.za/about-government/leaders/profile/8166">Khomotso Phahlane</a> has championed a renewed focus on policing fundamentals and areas of under-performance. This may have resulted in resources being directed away from seeking out drug-related crimes. </p>
<p>Depending on where you stand on the issue of the desirability or effectiveness of drug <a href="http://idpc.net/alerts/2016/03/south-africa-is-still-fighting-an-apartheid-like-drug-war">prohibition</a>, this may or may not seem like a good thing. </p>
<p>The rates of illegal firearm possession have also decreased slightly in the last year. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137186/original/image-20160909-13356-1xdk6jm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137186/original/image-20160909-13356-1xdk6jm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137186/original/image-20160909-13356-1xdk6jm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137186/original/image-20160909-13356-1xdk6jm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137186/original/image-20160909-13356-1xdk6jm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137186/original/image-20160909-13356-1xdk6jm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137186/original/image-20160909-13356-1xdk6jm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>It is important to remember that national statistics say very little about how individuals experience crime. Each neighbourhood is different, which requires individuals to do a deep dive into the <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php">crimes reported</a> at local police stations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation. </span></em></p>South Africa has stubbornly high rates of violent crime. More concerning, though, is that the latest crime stats suggest the recent increase in murders is not slowing - it may even continue.Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/640602016-08-28T18:08:19Z2016-08-28T18:08:19ZWhat to look for in South Africa’s troubling crime statistics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135421/original/image-20160824-30259-12ivxlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Crime is not at all evenly distributed in any country or city, so smaller scale data is essential.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 19th century, a growing number of countries have attempted to systematically <a href="http://law.jrank.org/pages/2163/Statistics-Reporting-Systems-Methods-History-crime-statistics.html">collect and analyse</a> information on all the crimes known to their police.</p>
<p><a href="https://data.unodc.org/">At least 139</a> have made some such data public at least once in the last decade, but there is major variation in quality and in the frequency and ease of public access.</p>
<p>For example, the United Kingdom releases audited figures for the previous 12 months <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly">quarterly</a>, but more detailed <a href="https://data.police.uk/data/">monthly</a> data for each geographic police force are also made available. </p>
<p>Crime is not at all evenly distributed in any country or city, so smaller scale data is essential. The US releases a semiannual <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-preliminary-semiannual-crime-statistics-for-2015">preliminary</a> report and an <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/latest-crime-stats-released">annual report</a>. Many <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2016/03/calls_for_service_data_are_the_best_way_to_analyze_crime_why_don_t_cities.html">US cities</a> publish quarterly, monthly, or even <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/crime_prevention/crime_statistics.shtml">weekly</a> crime statistics. </p>
<p>Developing countries face considerable challenges in their <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Crime-statistics/International_Statistics_on_Crime_and_Justice.pdf#page=9">capacity</a> to produce crime (or <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-poor-data-affects-africas-ability-to-make-the-right-policy-decisions-64064">other</a>) statistics of reasonable completeness. </p>
<p>In Africa, crime or criminal justice statistics <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/ICCS/12_E-CN15-2014-10_E.pdf#page=12">remain scarce</a>, fairly <a href="http://www.unodc.org/pdf/African_report.pdf#page=16">ad hoc</a>, and often of poor quality. And possible changes in the public’s reporting behaviour and the police’s recording behaviour can make it difficult to determine whether a change in the crime statistics is “real” or rather a <a href="http://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/sacq/article/view/1084">“statistical illusion”</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ab_r6_dispatchno56_police_corruption_in_africa.pdf#page=15">some countries</a>, less than one-third of the crime that people experience is ever reported to the police. Especially for crimes that are substantially under-reported (such as sexual crimes), an increase in the recorded rate may mean more people are reporting their experiences to the police rather than that more crimes are happening.</p>
<p>South Africa faces similar challenges. The South African Police Service (SAPS) publishes national, provincial and station crime statistics and has done so for several years. Experts and activists have called for more regular and detailed crime statistics. Many lauded the <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/crime-stats-to-be-released-quarterly">announcement</a> in June that the crime statistics would soon be released on a quarterly basis, but there is as yet no word on when or how this will be implemented.</p>
<p>Every year, the release of the SAPS crime statistics is met in equal parts with praise, criticism and scepticism. The African National Congress tends to interpret any reductions as indicators of success in policing and social development, the opposition does the reverse, and the police themselves tend to play down the extent to which they can be held responsible for the crime rates at all. </p>
<p>How the country makes sense of the crime statistics matters because it provides insight into how the society is shaped. More crucially, it should inform public and personal decisions about how best to make progress against crime.</p>
<h2>What to look for in the numbers</h2>
<p>The annual crime statistics usually show some rates going up even as others go down. Each of the almost 30 different crime types may be of particular interest to different people and interest groups, but we think that sustained trends in five areas provide an important snapshot of where we stand: </p>
<p><strong>Murder rate:</strong> will the last few years’ upswing in the national murder rate continue? Or will it stabilise or decline? </p>
<p>We <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-show-south-africa-has-not-become-more-violent-since-democracy-62444">have shown</a> there was a long decline in the national murder rate between 1994 and 2011, followed by an uptick in the last three years although it is still at about half what it was 20 years ago. </p>
<p>As we indicate in our <a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php/component/virtuemart/a-citizen-s-guide-to-crime-statistics-detail?Itemid=6">book</a>, murder is often considered an indicator of levels of violence and crime more generally, so its trends are highly noteworthy. A continuation of the recent upward trend would suggest the significance of new dynamics driving violence, perhaps including factors such as greater political volatility and growing inequality.</p>
<p><strong>Murder rate in Cape Town:</strong> will this again rise disproportionately to the rest of the country? Since 2011 Cape Town has taken a <a href="http://www.criminology.uct.ac.za/news/where-murder-rising-concentration-cape-town-and-diffusion-within">growing lead</a> among the metros, to the point where its murder rate of more than 60 per 100,000 people is now <a href="https://africacheck.org/spot_check/is-cape-towns-murder-rate-double-that-of-johannesburg/">about twice</a> that of Johannesburg and among the highest in the <a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-world.html">world</a>. </p>
<p>Further increases would be a very worrying sign, pointing to the increasing entrenchment of gangsterism and the availability of firearms, possibly related to the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-07-04-when-hell-is-not-hot-enough-a-top-cop-who-supplied-weapons-to-countrys-gangsters-and-right-wingers/">large-scale illegal sale</a> of firearms by a corrupt SAPS officer. Tackling this will require effective joint action from national and local government. </p>
<p><strong>Aggravated robbery trends:</strong> House and business robberies are among the very few crime types that have seen significant increases over the last decade. They are also major contributors to public fear, so their trends are important in understanding how people experience and perceive crime and policing.</p>
<p><a href="https://issafrica.org/crimehub/press-releases/south-africa-urgently-needs-a-new-approach-to-crime-violence-and-public-safety">Some experts</a> also consider aggravated robbery to be relatively subject to police prevention, especially through crime intelligence. Continued increases could therefore suggest a failure by the police. Conversely, a decline would be an important achievement. </p>
<p><strong>Burglary:</strong> These crimes have seen significant declines over the last ten years (supported by victim survey data), so a stabilisation or increase would be a major reversal of the long-term trend and a cause for concern. Although it does not involve physical violence, burglary is highly invasive. It is one of the most-feared crimes, so its trend is an important contributor to public perceptions of safety.</p>
<p><strong>Drug-related crime and illegal possession of firearms:</strong> These crimes are heavily dependent on police action for detection. They are one of the few indicators of the extent of police activity. While such data are not definitive, increases for example in firearms seizures can be a measure of police attempts to reduce violent crime.</p>
<p>The data on recorded crime should always be interpreted in the context of information from other sources, primarily the crime victimisation survey completed <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412014.pdf">annually</a> by Statistics South Africa. </p>
<p>Finally, it must be stressed that crime statistics are public property. Every citizen has a right to access them easily, promptly and in a format that makes them useful to our lives and decisions. We also have a responsibility to read them critically but honestly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Shaw receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africa releases crime statistics once a year. Politicians interpret them according to their particular agendas. Here’s a guide to what to look for and how to make sense of the trends.Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape TownMark Shaw, Director of the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/636662016-08-11T19:35:40Z2016-08-11T19:35:40ZDecade-old rape charge sticks to President Zuma like the original sin<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133807/original/image-20160811-13397-t7hzb4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-rape protesters at President Jacob Zuma's election results speech.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beeld/Deon Raath</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the protest by four women at the announcement of South Africa’s municipal elections results on August 6, the details of the rape trial of President Jacob Zuma in 2006 once again come to the fore.</p>
<p>In the past few days, social media and the Twitterati have been ablaze with discussion about the <a href="http://www.citizen.co.za/1241848/twitter-having-none-of-akas-rape-culture-denialist-tweets/">issue</a>. It seems that, a decade on, the meaning of this significant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/08/aids.southafrica">event</a> will not go away.</p>
<p>An argument can be made that Zuma will never be able to escape its relevance and consequences. It is like the concept of original sin that requires cleansing. What a pity that the <a href="http://www.news24.com/elections/news/anti-rape-protesters-disrupt-zumas-speech-20160806">peaceful protesters</a> in support of “Khwezi” – the name given to Zuma’s accuser – were deemed a “<a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-08-08-response-to-rememberkhwezi-protest-highlighted-zumas-ambiguity-on-womens-rights-issues/#.V6r67Jh97IU">security threat</a>” and forcibly removed by security men.</p>
<p>The ghost of Khwezi continues to haunt Zuma just as the spectre of rape continues to haunt South Africa. Even though he was acquitted, this matter will not go away. <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPHC/2006/45.pdf">An acquittal did</a> not erase profound concerns about Zuma’s ethics and his <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/zuma-comments-about-women-outrageously-sexist">demeaning attitudes</a> towards women.</p>
<p>Despite the judge interpreting the evidence <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2014/08/08/zuma-rape-judgment-questioned">very narrowly</a> and devoid of any feminist consciousness, he did call Zuma’s conduct into question: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is totally unacceptable that a man should have unprotected sex with
any person other than his regular partner and definitely not with a person who to his knowledge is HIV positive. I do not even want to comment on the effect of a shower after having had <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPHC/2006/45.pdf">unprotected sex</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Zuma claimed during the trial that he taken a shower to shield himself from infection after what he said was consensual sex with his <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/zuma-stands-his-ground-on-shower-comment-277106">accuser, who was HIV positive</a>.</p>
<h2>South Africa’s rape scourge</h2>
<p>South Africa celebrates <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/south-africa-celebrates-first-national-womens-day">National Women’s Day</a> this month to commemorate the 1956 march of 20,000 women on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to petition against the country’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-1994">pass laws</a>. These restricted the movement of black people during apartheid, and the march was prompted by the government’s extension of the laws to women.</p>
<p>South Africans should think hard about how far they have come to stamp out the political, economic and cultural reasons that stand in the way of women’s progress today. And, given the country’s high incidence of rape, this reflection should include examining reasons for the high levels of violence against women.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.publiclaw.uct.ac.za/pbl/staff/dsmythe">Dee Smythe</a> notes in her book, “<a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Rape_Unresolved.html?id=TLaKrgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Rape Unresolved: Victims and Police Responses in South Africa</a>”, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>more than 1,000 women are raped in South Africa every day.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The ANC’s guilt</h2>
<p>What a pity that some of those who persecuted Khwezi were members of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League and the ANC’s Women’s League. Julius Malema, then President of the ANC Youth League, suggested that Khwezi had <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/7449404/ANC-youth-leader-guilty-of-hate-over-Jacob-Zuma-rape-comment.html">enjoyed sex with Zuma</a>. The Women’s League members also <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-08-11-can-bathabile-dlamini-save-the-anc-womens-league/#.V6xr_Jh97IU">mocked </a> her. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133786/original/image-20160811-13397-vsluk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133786/original/image-20160811-13397-vsluk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133786/original/image-20160811-13397-vsluk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133786/original/image-20160811-13397-vsluk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133786/original/image-20160811-13397-vsluk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133786/original/image-20160811-13397-vsluk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133786/original/image-20160811-13397-vsluk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacob Zuma in court during the rape trial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/John Hrusa/Pool</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Following the recent outcry over the treatment of the women demonstrating at Zuma’s post-election speech, the ANC, and particularly its <a href="http://womensleague.anc.org.za/">Women’s League</a>, has persistently argued that the resurfacing of the rape trial is an attempt to <a href="http://www.citizen.co.za/1245607/khwezi-protest-is-eff-opportunism-ancwl/">embarrass </a> Zuma. </p>
<p>Even though Zuma was acquitted of the rape charges, a reading of the case suggests a man devoid of compassion and understanding when it comes to women. He is certainly not the figure to lead South Africa as it tries to deal with the continuing plague of violence against women. </p>
<p>Yes, this case is old and buried and the country needs to move on. Unfortunately, for the many victims of rape, it is not so easy. Their lives have been devastated and many remain imprisoned by their trauma and pain. </p>
<p>What a pity that Khwezi was treated with <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/why-i-wish-that-zuma-was-dead-360792">contempt and persecuted</a> because she dared lodge a complaint against Zuma. What a pity that her sexual history became more significant than Zuma’s conduct. What a pity that, after the acquittal, she had to <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/khwezi-now-lives-in-the-netherlands-360369">go into exile</a> in the Netherlands for her own safety.</p>
<p>Just as democratic South Africa’s first President Nelson Mandela moved the country towards healing, so too should Zuma on the issue of sexual violence. He needs to help affirm, console and help survivors move on and begin to live meaningful lives. But, on all the evidence, he is not that person and cannot be. His record is too tarnished. Khwezi continues to be that reminder.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63666/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penelope Andrews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ghost of ‘Khwezi’ – the woman who accused Jacob Zuma of rape in 2006 – continues to haunt him, just as the spectre of rape continues to haunt South Africa.Penelope Andrews, Dean of Law and Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549242016-02-19T03:58:53Z2016-02-19T03:58:53ZRape in South Africa: why the system is failing women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111925/original/image-20160218-1276-1eopyea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Placards voicing the concerns of rape victims outside the High Court in Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>About 150 women <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/resource_centre/publications/statistics/crimestats/2015/crime_stats.php">report being raped</a> to the police in South Africa daily. Fewer than 30 of the cases will be prosecuted, and no more than 10 will result in a conviction. This translates into an overall conviction rate of 4% - 8% of reported cases. In this edited extract from her new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rape-Unresolved-Policing-Sexual-Offences/dp/1919895892">Rape Unresolved: Policing Sexual Offences in South Africa</a>, Dee Smythe explores why this is the case.</em></p>
<h2>One story</h2>
<p>It is a warm Friday evening in Masiphumelele, a settlement in the far south of Cape Town. On her way home from work, Tandazwa Mpofu (not her real name) stops off for a quick drink at a shebeen, one of the tens of thousands of vibrant, informal (and often illegal) drinking establishments found across the country. She phones her sister to join her, but she’s still at work. </p>
<p>At the shebeen she takes a chair outside – it is summer, still light, and already getting hot and stuffy inside. A woman invites her to join their table. She introduces Tandazwa to a man she says is her father. An hour or so later, when Tandazwa says goodbye, they offer her a lift home. The car is distinctive: souped up in a backyard, painted red, with black racing car stripes down the sides.</p>
<p>After dropping off his “daughter” the man takes Tandazwa to a quiet road, where he rapes her at knife point and throws her out of the car. Naked, she finds her way to the house of a friend, who gives her clothes and takes her to the police station. She can identify the car and is certain she can identify the man who raped her. There were many other people at the shebeen who saw them together. She can identify the man’s “daughter”.</p>
<p>One month later, the only entry in the police docket is a short summary of the facts, written by the detective, with the following phrase underlined in red:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… he bought beers for the victim …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nothing else has been done to pursue the investigation. The docket goes to the Detective Commander for inspection. Obviously angry, he writes in the investigation diary:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Your investigation or the lack thereof comes down to severe negligence on your part. This docket must receive the attention it deserves. Why was no crime kit completed? Do it NOW!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That same day the detective goes to the victim’s house and obtains the following withdrawal statement from her:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have spoken to the investigating officer about the case, but I cannot answer any of his questions. That is, who is the man who raped me, who was sitting at the table [in the shebeen], and also where it happened. I can therefore provide no information to take this investigation forward. I also told my mother this. I therefore feel like I don’t want to continue with the matter.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The case is closed, marked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… withdrawn complainant.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Attrition</h2>
<p>A quote from former Western Cape Provincial Police Commissioner <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Abuse-victims-must-persevere-20080901">Mzwandile Petros</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On a Friday and Saturday you have long queues of people reporting crimes against women and children, and then on Monday you have a long queue of people wanting to withdraw these cases … I am concerned as the Commissioner of Police about the conviction rate of these cases … If I have a 1% conviction rate, I have to be concerned about it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For a range of reasons, attrition happens in the criminal justice system, so that not all reported cases are prosecuted and not all prosecuted cases result in conviction. But the view expressed by the provincial Police Commissioner and the experience of Tandazwa Mpofu reflect two very different perspectives on attrition.</p>
<p>In both instances – the woman who withdraws her complaint on Monday morning because she has sobered up or reconciled with the perpetrator, and the woman who withdraws her complaint because of police incompetence and apathy – the official outcome written on the docket and captured in police statistics is the same: “withdrawn complainant”. But the locus of responsibility for that decision and the degree of agency exercised by the victims differ markedly.</p>
<p>While attrition is to be expected in any functional criminal justice system, it occurs in an institutional context that is shot through with discretion. One scholar has gone so far as to suggest that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… (w)hat we call the criminal justice “system” is nothing more than the sum total of a series of discretionary decisions by innumerable officials.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The actions of criminal justice actors and the decisions they make are a crucial part of the attrition story.</p>
<p>The police decide whether to open a case, whether they will investigate it, and how much effort they will put into accumulating evidence and finding the perpetrator. It is their choice (whether they recognise it as such or not) to encourage a complainant in her efforts to bring the perpetrator to justice or to acquiesce in her withdrawal from the justice system. The police decide whether a case should be referred to the prosecution.</p>
<p>Prosecutors decide how to frame a particular set of facts as an offence – shaping a fit between what they can prove happened, and a set of elements that defines the conduct as criminal. They decide whether a case has sufficient merit to be taken to court, what evidence will be brought, who will be heard.</p>
<p>And ultimately, a judge decides whether the state will provide redress.</p>
<p>Throughout this process, manifested at key decision points, cases leave the criminal justice system. In this way criminal justice actors have the power to select those whom the state will protect, who will be put on trial, and who will obtain justice.</p>
<h2>Stereotypes of what constitutes rape</h2>
<p>Scholars studying attrition in rape cases generally explain the low rate of reporting and conviction in these cases by pointing to the stereotypical views held by criminal justice actors about what constitutes a sexual offence, and who can validly claim to have been victimised.</p>
<p>They argue that these beliefs have become scripted into criminal justice practice, with the result that the cases filtered out of the system are not those that are intrinsically weak, but rather those that offend the normative assumptions of decision-makers.</p>
<p>There is empirical support for this contention. Studies conducted over the last 40 years have shown that the closer the fit between the facts of the rape reported and the decision-maker’s conception of what constitutes “rape” (as opposed to “bad” or even “normal” sex), the more likely it is that the case will proceed successfully through the system. </p>
<p>On this account, “violent” rapes committed by predatory “strangers” against “respectable” (for which read white, middle-class, married or virginal) women, who are injured while resisting, have become the paradigm cases against which all rape reports are measured in the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>Complainants who are perceived to have precipitated their own victimisation, whether through their conduct or their relationship to the perpetrator, are at a particular disadvantage. </p>
<p>Being drunk (or accepting a drink from the alleged perpetrator), hitchhiking, flirting or selling sex all diminish a complainant’s credibility and the validity of her claim on the criminal justice system, even where there is evidence that the accompanying sexual acts were coerced.</p>
<p>Despite evidence that intimate-partner rapes are among the most violent manifestations of sexual violence, until relatively recently most jurisdictions have regarded marital rape as a contradiction in terms, and provided little protection to women who are raped by their husbands.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111926/original/image-20160218-1264-1q6idco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The residual effects of centuries of prejudice linger tenaciously in criminal justice canons of sexual violence, relentlessly reproducing unjust outcomes, at the same time as they produce our very conceptions of sex and sexuality. Cultural beliefs about women and sex, and the notion that what women really want – what they find romantic or erotic – is to be overwhelmed by male sexual aggression, infuse “common sense” social and legal opinion, often leaving victims of rape without recourse or protection.</p>
<p>Numerous studies have unmasked examples of misogynist stereotyping within police ranks, with experts suggesting that the institutional character of policing, with its own peculiar set of norms and stereotypes – machismo, cynicism and scepticism being not the least of these – makes the police particularly unsuited to dealing with victims of sexual violence.</p>
<h2>Police’s story</h2>
<p>The police tell a different story. At least, in South Africa they do. Theirs is a tale of unco-operative victims. It is the Police Commissioner’s indignant comment about long lines of complainants on a Friday and Saturday night waiting to report crimes of violence against women, and equally long lines on a Monday morning wanting to withdraw their complaints.</p>
<p>Police talk about complainants who cynically use the criminal justice system, fabricating or exaggerating rape complaints to further their own instrumental goals – of revenge or extortion, mostly – or to explain away their sexual misdemeanours. </p>
<p>The police argue that even when they are sympathetic and helpful, large numbers of victims withdraw valid complaints, refusing to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution of the aggressor. They say that an inordinate number of rape complaints received by them are false, and suggest that in certain communities this has become a common means of exacting revenge on male partners (past or present). </p>
<p>Furthermore, substantial numbers of rape complainants withdraw charges once they or their families have received financial compensation from the perpetrator.</p>
<p>And finally – to a lesser extent, although very much prevalent in specific areas – direct or indirect intimidation forces complainants to withdraw charges.</p>
<p>These police officers have been through many hours of sensitivity training. They can reel off the ten biggest rape myths, and they care about bringing rapists to justice; but they maintain that if complainants do not cooperate, there is little that can be done to pursue the case.</p>
<p>Their discontent runs along the following lines: investigating rape complaints is often a frustrating waste of time, and the effort required to investigate those cases needs to be weighed against other urgent organisational pressures and priorities, particularly in a resource-constrained environment such as South Africa. They argue that South Africa is fighting a “war on crime”, and the police are the vanguard. If rape victims are not serious about their own cases, they have only themselves to blame if they don’t get justice.</p>
<p>Some argue that complainants should not be allowed to withdraw their complaints at all; and that if they insist on doing so, or recant, they should be charged with defeating the ends of justice. The overarching claim is that it is complainants and not criminal justice actors or actions that are responsible for the closure of cases.</p>
<h2>Victim recalcitrance and systematic failures</h2>
<p>In the mid-1990s, the South African government responded to the pressing problem of sexual violence by making violence against women and children a strategic crime-prevention and policing priority.</p>
<p>Translation of this rhetorical commitment into effective programmatic interventions has never been fully achieved. Nonetheless, the commitment thereto is constantly reiterated in law and policy, and through the courts.</p>
<p>The stories I collected in my research reflect evidence of both victim recalcitrance and systemic failures. They cannot be neatly parsed. A picture unfolds of attrition as deriving from the complex interaction of individual, structural and systemic factors.</p>
<p>While it is likely that the factors identified in my research share similarities with those of other, more developed countries, it is also arguable that many of them – and the way in which they combine – are reflective of the social and institutional dynamics of a developing country, and even more specifically, of the transitional post-apartheid South African milieu.</p>
<h2>Why the blame game is unhelpful</h2>
<p>Simplistic accounts of uncooperative and prevaricating victims on the one hand, and unsympathetic misogynist cops on the other, do not take us any further towards understanding the dynamics of rape attrition.</p>
<p>If the police are correct in their estimation, we are dealing with tens of thousands of deceitful women who are placing an intolerable strain on the system and its very limited resources.</p>
<p>If women’s-rights activists are correct, the police remain deeply and irredeemably misogynist in culture and in practice. When nine out of ten reported cases are not prosecuted (and two out of three are not even referred to the prosecutor for a determination), we are faced with a massive systemic failure that needs to be understood. When the numbers are as substantial as they are in South Africa, the problem becomes urgent.</p>
<p>Understanding this phenomenon is therefore at the centre of identifying ways to strengthen and develop police and civil society interventions, and to effect meaningful access to justice for victims of sexual offences.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Rape Unresolved: Policing Sexual Offences in South Africa by Dee Smythe is published by Taschenbuch</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dee Smythe received funding from OSF-SA, the University of Cape Town's Research Committee and the National Research Foundation for parts of this research. </span></em></p>Rape complainants who are perceived to have precipitated their own victimisation, whether through their conduct or their relationship to the perpetrator, are at a particular disadvantage.Dee Smythe, Professor in the Department of Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/315972014-09-12T12:27:04Z2014-09-12T12:27:04ZPistorius verdict reflects a troubling relationship with guns<p>South African paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been found <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29149581">not guilty of the murder</a> of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The presiding judge, Thokozile Masipa, found him guilty, though, of culpable homicide and negligently handling a firearm and will sentence Pistorius, 27, on October 13.</p>
<p>Delivering her verdict, Masipa said Pistorius had acted negligently when he shot Steenkamp through a closed toilet door: “A reasonable person, with a similar disability, would have foreseen that the person behind the door would be killed, and the accused failed to take action to avoid this.”</p>
<p>The firearms offence relates to an incident that took place a month before Steenkamp’s death when a gun belonging to Pistorius went off in a crowded Johannesburg restaurant. </p>
<p>It is an important charge as it relates to the athlete’s relationship with guns. Debates about gun control existed long before the Pistorius trial – and will continue long afterwards – but we think less about what guns mean to us as individuals, even when their place in our lives leads to tragedy.</p>
<p>A firearm is essentially a piece of technology. And technologies, <a href="http://www2.winchester.ac.uk/edstudies/courses/level%20two%20sem%20two/Freud-Civil-Disc.pdf">Freud argued</a>, are prosthetics. They expand and enhance the body, enabling us to function beyond our natural capabilities. The telephone enables us to hear at distances far further than our ears allow and the microscope to see things that our eyes are not capable of perceiving.</p>
<p>Weapons give us power beyond what our hands can provide. As criminologist Michael McGuire <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1SIYyC5shxAC&pg=PT325&lpg=PT325&dq=maguire+%E2%80%9Chighly+complex+enhancements+to+our+prehistoric+capacity+for+attack+and+defence,+capable+of+delivering+lethal,+targeted+force%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=jBMAyNMNP8&sig=pG7WOYr6A1Bs97k8R__xQ9DvQI8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=or8SVPzNN6L17AaxkICYCw&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=maguire%20%E2%80%9Chighly%20complex%20enhancements%20to%20our%20prehistoric%20capacity%20for%20attack%20and%20defence%2C%20capable%20of%20delivering%20lethal%2C%20targeted%20force%E2%80%9D&f=false">argues</a>, they are “highly complex enhancements to our prehistoric capacity for attack and defence, capable of delivering lethal, targeted force”. </p>
<p>The idea of technology as prosthetic is an interesting one, particularly in relation to the Pistorius case. He is known throughout the world for his athletic successes, enabled through one prosthetic – the carbon fibre blades that earned him the nickname “bladerunner”. But he is now also known for another – the firearm.</p>
<p>He kept one in his bedroom and used it to shoot Steenkamp but also carried them with him in public and used them at firing ranges.</p>
<p>If we are looking at guns as prosthetics, or extensions of the body, it could be argued that the weapon in Pistorius’ bedroom enhanced his capacity to defend himself. His weapon would be more effective than his body if his home were under invasion, as he believed.</p>
<p>We have heard about his considerable fear of intruders, recollections of his mother keeping a pistol under her pillow and memories of house break-ins during his adolescence. So the gun as a prosthetic reinforcing the capacity of one’s body to deflect an attack would seem to be a reasonable understanding of what firearms meant to Pistorius.</p>
<p>But his behaviour around firearms outside this private domain suggests that other forces were at work. Pistorius denied that he pulled the trigger when his gun went off in the restaurant in front of 200 people on January 11 2013, but the court ruled that he nevertheless acted negligently.</p>
<p>Pistorius was having lunch with friends at the time. He was not a frightened homeowner, woken by a potential intruder in the middle of the night. He was not fearing for the safety of himself or his girlfriend. He was a confident young man, in the light of day, with no immediate threat to his wellbeing, in the company of his peers. Here, the gun was a different kind of prosthetic. It did not extend the capacity of his physical body but his social performance.</p>
<p>Sociologist <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Presentation-Self-Everyday-Life/dp/0385094027">Erving Goffman</a> argued that the way we present ourselves to the world is akin to a theatrical performance. We are actors on a stage, playing characters that we want our audiences to believe. For Pistorius, the firearm was a stage prop that helped him perform an exciting, dangerous and hedonistic character.</p>
<p>Goffman also spoke of a “backstage”, though. When not in front of an audience, a person becomes their true self, shedding the roles they play in front of others and the props and costumes that come along with the performance. </p>
<p>We could argue that the Pistorius trial has revealed his true or backstage self. He was shown to be a fearful, paranoid and vulnerable person when he was at home, in private. It’s a character altogether different from the part of the exciting, dangerous and hedonistic young man or the courageous, determined and successful athlete the public often saw.</p>
<p>In the early hours of February 14 2013, a social prosthesis became a physical one, a prop became a fatal weapon. Perhaps it is time for all gun owners to reflect on what their firearms mean to them in terms of extensions of their body and public persona. Only then might we prevent the tragedies that unfold when front and backstage collide as they did in the house on Silverwoods Estate that night.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Yardley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South African paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has been found not guilty of the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The presiding judge, Thokozile Masipa, found him guilty, though, of culpable…Elizabeth Yardley, Reader in Criminology and Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/315932014-09-12T05:31:01Z2014-09-12T05:31:01ZSouth African prisons: the trials of Oscar Pistorius may not be over<p>Oscar Pistorius has been <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-09-11-pistorius-cleared-of-premeditated-murder?ars=true">cleared</a> of premeditated murder charges, but found guilty of culpable homicide – a crime for which he could face a possible 15 years behind bars. He has also been found guilty of firing a gun in a restaurant. </p>
<p>The possibility that presiding judge, Thokozile Masipa, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/oscar-pistorius-verdict-what-next">may send the world-famous Paralympian</a> to jail has roused many to ask about prison conditions in South Africa, and specifically how those with physical disabilities fare.</p>
<p>The short answer is: not good and not well. The department of correctional services has policies in place for dealing with physically disabled inmates. Policy and practice, however, are often poles apart. Unfortunately, prisoners with disabilities face the same inhumane conditions as other able-bodied inmates.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/correctional/prisonsinsa.pdf">Human rights activists</a> – including the <a href="http://witsjusticeproject.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/remand-detention-in-south-africa.pdf">Wits Justice Project</a> – have protested the conditions in which South African prisoners are kept for many years, pointing to the many constitutional safeguards they violate.</p>
<p>South African prisons are overcrowded (on <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2013/08/26/overcrowding-in-south-african-prisons-falls">average</a> 128% and in some prisons over 200%), which result in serious problems with violence and communicable diseases. Tuberculosis is the number one killer in South African prisons, as a result of poor ventilation and overcrowding. According to <a href="http://judicialinsp.dcs.gov.za/Annualreports/Annual%20Report%202011-2012.pdf">a report</a> by the Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services, 110 of the 800 natural deaths in prison in 2011 and 2012 were caused by TB.</p>
<h2>Pistorius case an anomaly</h2>
<p>Although the Pistorius case has <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-pistorius-south-african-media-wont-be-the-same-again-25421">highlighted many deficiencies</a> in the criminal justice system, it is important to understand that it nonetheless received more resources and expert input that the great majority of ordinary cases. </p>
<p>Or to put it another way: the Pistorius case is an anomaly. Other cases normally take much longer and both the victims and the accused face the strong probability of a miscarriage of justice. This is further exacerbated by the profound poverty in which many South Africans still live, which limits their ability to access justice.</p>
<p>For instance, Pistorius spent no time in remand detention at all, whereas the average time spent in prison by an arrestee before being brought to trial is three months – due largely to the length of time that the police take to verify the address of the detainee, in order for bail to be granted, and to investigate the case.</p>
<h2>‘We are 88 men in this cell’</h2>
<p>The best way to highlight these differences is to compare his case to that of another inmate with a disability, paraplegic Ronnie Fakude. Caroyln Raphaely, senior journalist with the Wits Justice Project, began covering Ronnie’s story in early 2013, in a <a href="http://witsjusticeproject.com/2013/02/25/oscar-pistorius-case-highlights-plight-of-south-africas-disabled-prisoners/">story</a> published by the South African Saturday Star and The Guardian. In it, Ronnie is quoted verbatim, describing his conditions as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m a 50-year-old paraplegic and have been awaiting trial for more than two years since my arrest on fraud charges in December 2011. I can’t walk, I can’t control my bowel or bladder and have to wear disposable baby nappies which my family buy for me. I’m paralysed from level four and don’t have a wheelchair.</p>
<p>If I use my [crutches] I have to pull my legs and throw them to the front. That’s how I walk. Living here is very hard. We are 88 men in this cell which is meant for 32. Sometimes there are more. Twelve people sleep in two bunks pushed together, that’s six on the top and six on the bottom. I have my own bed on the bottom, which is a privilege. Luckily, I don’t have to share because of my medical status.</p>
<p>There are eight or 10 people with TB in this cell and four or five we know are HIV-positive. A guy with multi-drug resistant TB sleeps on top of me. I feel vulnerable all the time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-04-28-inequality-before-the-law-oscar-pistorius-vs.-ronnie-fakude/#.VBGSS_mSy5J">latest</a> of the many follow-ups she published, Raphaely closely compares the Fakude and Pistorius cases, as well as that of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-29123813">Shrien Dewani</a>, the murder suspect extradited to South African from the UK, concluding as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The harsh truth is that those with money and privilege fare far better on the justice continuum than the poor or indigent from the moment of arrest, and this often starts with bail. Like Pistorius and Dewani, Fakude remains theoretically innocent until proven guilty. Unlike Pistorius, who was granted R1m [£56,000] bail and a subsequent relaxation of his bail conditions permitting him to travel and drink alcohol, Fakude never applied for bail because he believed he couldn’t afford it – his co-accused were granted bail of R15,000, a sum that was beyond his means.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Electronic tags</h2>
<p>Fakude has been released from remand, and has instead been “electronically tagged” to ensure his return to the court for his upcoming trial. It would be a further irony if the Pistorius team used the Fakude ruling as a precedent to argue for their client to take part in the <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/big-brother-is-watching-1.1299390?ot=inmsa.ArticlePrintPageLayout.ot">electronic tagging programme</a>, which has only recently been rolled out in South Africa. </p>
<p>Given what we know of the prison conditions in South Africa, it seems only fair that prisoners with physical disabilities should automatically be considered to be electronically tagged, allowing them to keep some dignity intact.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nooshin Erfani-Ghadimi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Oscar Pistorius has been cleared of premeditated murder charges, but found guilty of culpable homicide – a crime for which he could face a possible 15 years behind bars. He has also been found guilty of…Nooshin Erfani-Ghadimi, Project Coordinator, Wits Justice Project, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/313962014-09-09T16:59:15Z2014-09-09T16:59:15ZPistorius verdict can only tell us so much about a deeply troubled culture of fear<p>After six months of courtroom drama relayed around the world, Judge Thokozile Masipa has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/sep/11/oscar-pistorius-verdict-trial-live">reached her verdict</a> on Oscar Pistorius: not guilty of the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, but guilty of her “culpable homicide”. He was also found not guilty of possessing illegal ammunition and firing a gun through a car sunroof, but guilty of firing a gun in a restaurant. </p>
<p>On the crucial count of Steenkamp’s murder, the judge made it clear that she considered Pistorius’s conduct in the death of Steenkamp legally “negligent” – meaning he failed “to take the steps which he should reasonably have taken to guard against the consequence” of firing the shots that ultimately killed his girlfriend. But she also found that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it cannot be said that he foresaw that either the deceased or anyone else for that matter might be killed when he fired the shots at the toilet door.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so, after 18 months of speculation, cranked up to fever pitch since South Africa’s “trial of the century” began on March 3, the Pistorius case is finally over. But the reality is that the verdict – just like the trial that went before it – has told us rather less about the man and his country than we might want to think.</p>
<p>In a wider sense, much to the chagrin of its rulers, South Africa has come to be seen as an almost <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/crime-in-sa-uniquely-violent-mthethwa-1.1468994">uniquely violent</a> society, the “crime capital of the world” in some of the more breathless accounts. Some reject this as a caricature, but few would argue that the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/oscar-pistorius-trial-highlights-south-africas-fear-crime/story?id=23222575">16,259 murders</a> recorded by the police between April 2012 and March 2013 suggest a nation at peace with itself. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/15/south-africa-sexual-violence-women">sexual violence</a>, and other forms of <a href="https://theconversation.com/glitz-bling-beef-and-guns-behind-the-chauvinism-of-white-south-africa-26254">violence against women and girls</a> are widely acknowledged as a major social problem, though their true extent is unknown. </p>
<p>Yet the death of Reeva Steenkamp is less consistent with the pattern of violent deaths in South Africa than we might imagine. </p>
<p>Fewer than one in seven South African murder victims <a href="http://africacheck.org/2013/09/19/where-murder-happens-in-sa/">are female</a>; <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-crime-statistics-for-201213/">just under half of all murders</a> involve men killing other men in the course of an argument or dispute. The harsh reality is that the typical victim of lethal violence in contemporary South Africa is male, poor, and black.</p>
<p>Then we have the trial. A dignified and enigmatic <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29137816">judge</a> and two highly-skilled lawyers contributed much to the drama of the proceedings, but the tenacity and forensic skill with which Gerrie Nel and Barry Roux examined and cross-examined the witnesses – not to mention the resources they have been able to call on in making their cases – are far from the norm in South Africa. </p>
<p>The bungling that marred the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26627086">handling of the crime scene</a> and the early days of the investigation are more typical, showing off the parlous state of the detective functions of the South African Police Service.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the bare-knuckle contest between prosecution and defence we have saw in the North Gauteng High Court bore little resemblance to the routine proceedings of the justice system, which relies on a high volume of guilty pleas and a high turnover of uncontested cases to keep its wheels turning. </p>
<p>Oscar Pistorius has experienced something close to the best justice that money can buy. Thousands of his fellow countrymen are much less fortunate.</p>
<h2>Enigma and mystery</h2>
<p>Pistorius will remain an enigma; whatever really made him fire the fatal shots through the bathroom door that night is as mysterious now as it was when the trial began.</p>
<p>In an adversarial justice system such as South Africa’s, a criminal court is no place to plumb the depths of the human psyche. The best (or worst) we can hope for in the inevitable commentary on the verdict is to see Pistorius crudely sketched as a bundle of demographic characteristics – young, male, white, and physically disabled – that in turn serve as a proxy explanation for his behaviour. </p>
<p>For some, his actions will be made intelligible by the simple virtue of his membership of a politically disenfranchised minority, and by the cruel loss of the physical capacity he needed to rise to <a href="https://theconversation.com/glitz-bling-beef-and-guns-behind-the-chauvinism-of-white-south-africa-26254">a culturally prescribed ideal of manhood</a>.</p>
<h2>Living behind walls</h2>
<p>Above all, one thing the trial illustrated very starkly is the power of fear. The apartment where the shooting took place is on the <a href="http://www.silverwoods.co.za/">Silver Woods Country Estate</a>. The developers’ website makes much of the high levels of security that the estate has to offer: with security measures designed by a specialist consultant using the latest technology, Silver Woods is “enclosed with a solid, electrified security wall with strict access control utilising the latest security measures throughout”. </p>
<p>Despite his client’s life inside these fortifications, advocate <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-07-01-oscar-pistorius-when-advocates-pounce">Barry Roux</a> and his team played on the nightmares of millions of South Africans by suggesting Oscar Pistorius was a man living in fear – a man who might be excused for shooting an unknown and unseen intruder dead. </p>
<p>That defence drew from a deep well of popular anxiety: to summon up fears of the nameless infiltrator, who comes under cover of darkness to rob, rape and kill, was a very shrewd manoeuvre. </p>
<p>But it does not explain why anyone living on an estate as thoroughly fortified as Silver Woods would be so fearful. It may well be that Oscar Pistorius – who lived behind an electrified security wall and kept a 9mm handgun by the side of his bed, along with a stock of <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/what-are-expanding-bullets-dum-dums-used-oscar-pistorius-shoot-reeva-steenkamp-cause-more-damage">“ranger” bullets</a> designed to cause maximum damage to human tissue – remained a deeply fearful man. </p>
<p>We know that the demand for security can become insatiable, and that walls and weapons can be reminders of our fears rather than sources of reassurance. We have been shown too that, in South Africa, fear is a plausible explanation for actions like those that led to Reeva Steenkamp’s death. </p>
<p>But the question of why this explanation should seem reasonable at all, much less immediately appealing to millions of South Africans, is deeper and more disturbing than many of those asked in court. Perhaps that unanswered question is the true legacy of the trial of Oscar Pistorius.</p>
<p><strong><em>This article was updated on September 11 and 12 following the delivery of the verdict</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Dixon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After six months of courtroom drama relayed around the world, Judge Thokozile Masipa has reached her verdict on Oscar Pistorius: not guilty of the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, but guilty of her “culpable…Bill Dixon, Professor of Criminology, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/262052014-05-14T05:17:19Z2014-05-14T05:17:19ZWho is killing women in South Africa? The inconvenient truth<p>Who is responsible for violence towards women? This question runs like a thread through some of the public discourses swirling around the trial of athlete Oscar Pistorius. In some ways he represents an inconvenient truth – that not all violence against white women in South Africa is carried out by black men. </p>
<p>Days after the shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in February 2013, Lulu Xingwana, South Africa’s minister of women, children and people with disabilities <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Outcry-at-Xingwanas-Afrikaner-comments-20130227">stated</a> on Australian television: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Young Afrikaner men are brought up in the Calvinist religion believing that they own a woman, they own a child, they own everything and therefore they can take that life because they own it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her comments outraged a number of groupings and, following threats by <a href="https://www.afriforum.co.za/afriforum-asks-xingwana-to-follow-darren-scotts-example/">civil rights group AfriForum</a> to bring a case of discrimination on the basis of race, faith and gender in the Equality Courts, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21612968">minister apologised</a> unreservedly.</p>
<p>Just how contested white men’s violence towards white women is in South Africa became apparent again in 2013 when the Afrikaans singer and activist Sunette Bridges claimed in a Facebook post that Pistorius was the only white man to kill a white woman during the 15 months or so that she and others had been collecting news clippings. For the rest, white women met violent ends at the hands of black men. </p>
<p>These claims were disputed in an interview for an Afrikaans <a href="http://www.rapport.co.za/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Steve-vat-n-kans-oor-wit-moorde-20130629">newspaper</a> and a <a href="http://africacheck.org/2013/07/17/racial-scare-mongering-makes-light-of-womens-murders-2/">column</a> written for the website Africa Check. </p>
<p>This led Sunette Bridges, Steve Hofmeyr and the Freedom Front Plus to lodge a <a href="http://sunettebridges.co.za/official-complaint-lodged-at-the-sahrc/">complaint</a> with the South African Human Rights Commission in April of this year alleging that white men’s right to dignity was violated by these reports. I am one of those cited in the complaint.</p>
<h2>Behind homicide numbers</h2>
<p>So does this resistance to implicating white men in the deaths of white women have any basis? </p>
<p>In 1999, the Medical Research Council undertook a national study into <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/gender/sixhours.pdf">female homicide in the country</a>. This showed that four women were killed every day by their intimate male partners, producing an intimate female homicide rate for South Africa six times that of the global average. However, this finding was mediated by race. While the intimate female homicide rate overall was 8.8 per 100,000, the rate for white women was lower at 2.8 per 100,000. White women were also more likely to be killed by people with whom they were not intimate. </p>
<p>This analysis of female homicides <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001412&representation=PDF">was repeated in 2009</a> and found that the number of female homicides overall had declined since 1999, as was the case for homicide generally. At the peak in 1995-96 there was a prevalence rate of 62.7 per 100,000 but by 2008-9 it had had decreased by 44% to <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/crimehub/uploads/burgercrimetrends200809sacq302009.pdf">37.3 per 100 000.</a> As a result of this decline it was not meaningful to report on the data in terms of racial categories. </p>
<p>Overall, the 2009 study showed that even though the prevalence of intimate homicide had decreased from 8.8 per 100,000 women in 1999 to 5.6 per 100,000 in 2009, this <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001412&representation=PDF">decline was not statistically significant</a>, whereas that for non-intimate partner homicide was significant. (It is likely that at least some of this decrease would also be reflected in the non-intimate homicide rates for white women.) </p>
<p>Because the rate of intimate homicide did not decrease as rapidly as the proportion of non-intimate homicides, intimate homicide is now the leading cause of female homicides in the country, having accounted for 50% of female homicides in 1999 but 57% in 2009. It is a rate that is also five times that of the global average. </p>
<p>The later study raises important questions around how this reduction in non-intimate homicide was brought about and also points to <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001412&representation=PDF">the importance of firearms control</a> in saving women’s lives. Yet these aspects of the data which begin the important task of delineating the prevention of women’s violent deaths have scarcely been examined – so towering has been the sense of injury to white masculinity.</p>
<h2>Black mens’ role</h2>
<p>This lack of interest in the prevention of non-intimate homicides may also be informed by many white South Africans’ assumption that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pistorius-defence-and-the-fear-that-grips-white-south-africa-25559">the stranger/intruder is, by definition, black</a> and that explanations for violence require nothing further than reference to “blackness”. </p>
<p>Black men have not quietly acquiesced to this <a href="http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/sandilememela/2014/03/04/oscar-would-be-a-hero-if-only-reeva-was-a-black-man/">representation of themselves</a> and in 2004, South Africans witnessed a particularly acrimonious exchange on this subject between former president Thabo Mbeki and Charlene Smith, a journalist who wrote extensively about HIV and her experience of being raped. </p>
<p>Smith’s statement that South Africa had the highest rate of rape in the world and her conclusion that the role of religion, tradition and culture in shaping men’s attitudes towards women in Africa drew angry fire from <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/docs/anctoday/2004/at39.htm">Mbeki</a>. He wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I … will not keep quiet while others whose minds have been corrupted by the disease of racism, accuse us, the black people of South Africa, Africa and the world, as being, by virtue of our Africanness and skin colour – lazy, liars, foul-smelling, diseased, corrupt, violent, amoral, sexually depraved, animalistic, savage – and rapist.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was followed with a second <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/docs/anctoday/2004/at42.htm">column</a> some weeks later. </p>
<p>Challenges to the persistent – and life-threatening – stereotyping of black men as violent and criminal are crucial. But such challenges are made complicated when race is not the only issue at stake. Because the Mbeki-Smith debate became so focused on challenging the demonisation of black men, it left aside discussion of black women’s experiences of violence by black men. The current argument around who kills white women demonstrates yet another facet of invisibility to <a href="http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/sandilememela/2014/03/07/mrs-khumalo-your-daughter-is-not-reeva/">black women’s experience of violence</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Gender’ violence misses the point</h2>
<p>Just as race can be used to deflect attention away from men’s violence, so too can gender function in this way. </p>
<p>In many of South Africa’s institutions, the notion of “gender” has been conveniently simplified and degraded to mean “referring to or including both women and men”. Those who adopt this understanding argue that rape and domestic violence cannot be referred to as violence against women. Instead, it must more properly be described as gender-based violence because men also experience such forms of violence, while women also perpetrate such crimes. </p>
<p>But this logic creates a false equivalence in the proportions of men and women experiencing and perpetrating rape and domestic violence and significantly downplays the extent of men’s involvement in violence towards women. </p>
<p>The social and political dynamics of men’s violence towards women are fraught and frequently work in ways that downplay men’s responsibility for their actions. The Pistorius trial is thus far more than a legal enquiry into the athlete’s responsibility for the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Indeed, it is a window onto the larger narratives and politics of gender and race permanently under construction in South Africa. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Until 2012, Lisa Vetten was the Director of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre. She is currently the specialist adviser on gender-based violence to the Commission for Gender Equality. </span></em></p>Who is responsible for violence towards women? This question runs like a thread through some of the public discourses swirling around the trial of athlete Oscar Pistorius. In some ways he represents an…Lisa Vetten, Honorary research associate, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/254212014-04-17T05:20:21Z2014-04-17T05:20:21ZAfter Pistorius, South African media won’t be the same again<p>The murder <a href="https://theconversation.com/total-recall-truth-memory-and-the-trial-of-oscar-pistorius-25496">trial of Oscar Pistorius</a> is changing South Africa’s media ecology. It is the country’s first criminal trial to be covered fully on social media and live television, and both journalists and judges have had to learn new rules and practices on the fly.</p>
<p>Previously, we have had television cameras covering the high-level legal debate of our Constitutional Court and the occasional judgement in a major case of national important or commission of inquiry. But a precedent was set when it was ruled in this case that almost all of it could be broadcast live. Only “private”, non-expert, witnesses could opt out of the television coverage, though their audio would still be run live.</p>
<p>This was a step forward for the notion of open justice, though there was also some backtracking when an irritated <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/video/2014/03/10/judge-bans-broadcast-of-postmortem-evide?videoId=291217614">judge stopped</a> all coverage during the presentation of post mortem results (which have previously been public documents), including tweeting from the court. She had to quickly backtrack on the Twitter ban, when it became obvious that she had not understood the difficulty of containing social media.</p>
<h2>Media explosion</h2>
<p>South Africa has three new 24/7 news channels, as well as one pop-up TV channel and one pop-up radio channel, the latter two created especially for the Pistorius trial. This has led to unprecedented levels of coverage, as well as analysis and debate on every aspect of the procedure and evidence. </p>
<p>Flip between talk radio and live television and you will hear analysts and commentators dissecting on every aspect of the trial. Much of it is trivia about Pistorius’ every gesture, but there is also discussion about the legal procedure, the meaning of evidence and the performance of the teams of lawyers.</p>
<p>British viewers would be surprised at some of the discussion, with <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/oscar-risks-credibililty-with-two-stories-1.1676031#.U0zSP8eM2xo">senior legal figures commenting</a> on the performance of witnesses and interpreting evidence with little restraint.</p>
<p>It appears that there are few rules and restrictions. South African law has been relaxed in this regard, with a <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/2007/56.html">Constitutional Court ruling in 2007</a> that media could only be in contempt of court if: “the prejudice that the publication might cause to the administration of justice is demonstrable and substantial and there is a real risk that the prejudice will occur if publication takes place”. </p>
<p>This has opened wide the door to <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Oscar_Pistorius/Pistorius-lied-to-the-media-Report-20140413">commentary and speculation</a>, especially in the absence of a jury system. The free-for-all which has followed has raised the question of whether this has served the public well.</p>
<h2>Better informed</h2>
<p>Dunstan Mlambo, the judge who <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2014/02/25/Oscar-Pistorius-murder-trial-to-be-broadcast-live">allowed the cameras</a> into the Pistorius court argued that it would educate the public on the finer points of the justice system and demonstrate that all are treated equally before the law.</p>
<p>There can be little doubt that many South Africans are now much better informed about the workings of the courts, and the realisation that it is much more tedious and complicated than the television dramas which usually dominate our screens. If the purpose was to get South Africans engaged in issues of the law and justice system, it has been a roaring success.</p>
<p>Less clear is whether the judge was right that South Africans would see a display of equal treatment before the law. On show is very clearly a rich person’s justice and the fact that a major court case will bankrupt even the well-off. What we are seeing on our screens every day – including the best lawyers of the land and the court officers on their best behaviour – is a far cry from any ordinary person’s experience of our justice system. </p>
<p>Two other cases have been highlighted during the trial. The first was another murder trial just up the court corridor from the Pistorius case, also one of intimate partner violence. It received almost no attention until a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-trial-next-door-oscar-pistorius-gets-the-headlines-but-what-about-thato-kutumela-9194821.html">foreign correspondent wandered into that court</a> during a quiet moment in the Pistorius trial, and provided a much clearer demonstration of the extent of the problem of domestic violence.</p>
<p><a href="http://witsjusticeproject.com/2013/02/25/oscar-pistorius-case-highlights-plight-of-south-africas-disabled-prisoners/">A second case featured</a> another disabled accused, known only as Prisoner X for his own protection, a paraplegic who had been held without bail for two years under the most appalling conditions and without proper medical care.</p>
<p>What we have not seen much of yet in the South African media is an examination of some of the issues which arise out of the trial. These include the gun culture of much of South Africa’s elite which makes the carrying and firing of weaponry a routine part of everyday life; the high levels of gender-based violence, particularly between intimate partners; and the fear of faceless intruders which runs through a society with high levels of violent crime. </p>
<p>It is hard not to think about these things as the trial unfolds, but it often feels that South Africans are trying as hard as they can to ignore them. But it is clear that South Africa’s media environment will not be the same. Coverage – and the conversation around it – is being driven by social media. Conventional media tries to keep up by covering the Twitter and Facebook chatter second-hand. </p>
<p>And the daily newspapers are struggling to keep up, accelerating a serious decline which started a few years ago. Almost all of our daily papers have lost significant circulation in the last two years, which has led to large-scale newsroom cutbacks. The big story of <a href="https://theconversation.com/nelson-mandela-dies-man-who-reinvented-south-africa-as-a-rainbow-nation-15594">Nelson Mandela’s death</a> at the end of last year brought some relief for sales, but a glance at the <a href="http://www.abc.org.za/Notices.aspx/Details/35">dailies now show</a> that they are lagging behind the more nimble electronic media. Suddenly, the country has more live news broadcasting channels than ever before. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anton Harber is chair of the Freedom of Expression Institute in South Africa.</span></em></p>The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius is changing South Africa’s media ecology. It is the country’s first criminal trial to be covered fully on social media and live television, and both journalists and…Anton Harber, Caxton Professor of Journalism, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/255592014-04-15T05:18:34Z2014-04-15T05:18:34ZThe Pistorius defence and the fear that grips white South Africa<p>The week has not begun well for Oscar Pistorius. Under relentless cross-examination from prosecutor Gerrie Nel, the Paralympian athlete, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26984472">standing trial</a> for shooting and killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, came across as an evasive witness.</p>
<p>Pistorius first told the court he had “accidentally discharged” his firearm, then he said he acted out of fear because he thought his life was in danger, and then he said he did not mean to pull the trigger. Only the second of these claims provides a plausible legal defence.</p>
<p>Because there was no actual threat to Pistorius’ life, he cannot rely on the principle of self-defence. However, in South African law, the principle of <a href="http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/oscar-pistorius-criminal-law-101/">putative self-defence</a> may apply where the accused genuinely believed his or her life was threatened. </p>
<p>Where an accused is found to have genuinely believed their life was in danger and to have accordingly believed they were using reasonable means to avert an attack on themselves or their property, they may escape conviction for murder on the grounds that they lacked requisite intention.</p>
<p>Pistorius therefore has to convince the court that his vulnerability, as a disabled person living in South Africa, genuinely led him to believe his life was in danger from an intruder hiding behind a closed toilet door. The court must further be convinced that his response – pumping four bullets through the door – was reasonable in the circumstances.</p>
<p>For a person living outside South Africa, this may seem a tough ask. It may not seem remotely reasonable to shoot four “zombie-stopper” bullets into a door without having been directly threatened by an attacker and without knowing who was hiding behind it.</p>
<p>However, at the heart of the defence is an assumption that the high crime rate in South Africa, coupled with Pistorius’s vulnerable state as a disabled person, rendered his actions reasonable.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y9E_vlza3YA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Oscar Pistorius shoots zombie-stopper bullets.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Life of crime</h2>
<p>It is true that the rate of violent crime in South Africa is high. Although the murder rate has decreased substantially from 68.1 murders per 100,000 people in 1995/1996 to 30.3 per 100,000 in 2011/2012, this number remains extremely high. But statistics from different police stations also indicate that violent crime is <a href="https://africacheck.org/2013/09/19/where-murder-happens-in-sa/">far more rife in black townships</a> than in the middle class areas where most white people live.</p>
<p>Pistorius lived in one of the many gated communities which have sprung up in response to the perceived threat of violent crime against middle class people. Often built in an identical faux-Tuscan style, houses in such communities are usually also kitted out with an elaborate alarm system, as was Pistorius’. Such communities are typically surrounded by a high wall with an electric fence on top; the entrance to the community is always strictly controlled.</p>
<p>It was exactly because Pistorius lived in a gated community that he could sleep with the windows of his bedroom open. That he lived in such a place therefore presents a major difficulty for the defence. Most middle-class South Africans not living in such communities perform elaborate rituals at night to lock doors and security gates, and to activate alarm systems linked to the offices of private security companies on 24-hour call in the event of the alarm being tripped.</p>
<p>The obsession with violent crime displayed by some middle-class white people in South Africa, usually in fearful discussions at dinner parties and on radio talk shows, has become something of a cliché. It is made fun of by comedians and those wishing to display their enthusiastic support for the so-called “new South Africa”.</p>
<h2>Fear or racism?</h2>
<p>This fear became prominent around the time when South Africa made the transition from white minority rule to democracy. When white South Africans express an acute fear of violent crime, it can often sound like fear of crime has become a more acceptable way for white people to express their fear of black people and of a government led by black people.</p>
<p>Pistorius needs to convince the court that his alleged fear of an intruder was not irrational and that his response to this alleged fear was reasonable. That is why he has alleged that he himself has on several occasions been the victim of crime.</p>
<p>Because he lived in a relatively safe gated community, the only possible way Pistorius could plausibly claim to have been as fearful as he said he was would be to show that because of his disability he felt especially vulnerable. In effect, he is asking the court not to treat him as a reasonable able-bodied person, but as a reasonable disabled person. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pierre de Vos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The week has not begun well for Oscar Pistorius. Under relentless cross-examination from prosecutor Gerrie Nel, the Paralympian athlete, standing trial for shooting and killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp…Pierre de Vos, Claude Leon Foundation Chair in Constitutional Governance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.