Breaking the Cycle of Crime and Violence: Essential Steps to a Safe South Africa
By Barbara Holtmann

Introduction
Over the past several years our research (CSIR Crime Prevention Research Group) has aimed at answering the question: "What kind of a person commits a crime of violence with no empathy, no compassion and no concern for the consequence of his acts?" It is this kind of crime that sets us apart from other places where crime is a problem; it is the kind of crime that fills us with fear, that makes some of us pack up and leave behind this beautiful country and that makes many others for whom leaving is not an option, wish for a different life.

The answer to the question is in the end quite simple. The person who can commit a crime like that is someone who has fallen through every crack in our fragile society; he is someone who has a fragmented and inadequate education, little skill, who is marginalised from the mainstream opportunities and who has no hope or expectation of tomorrow. As a result, he is not someone we can negotiate with - he has nothing to offer and nothing to lose. He is the most dangerous person anyone can have in any society.

While this may seem to paint a sad and even hopeless picture, paradoxically, it is not. For in learning about what has made him, we have learned about what we can do to prevent others from following in his footsteps - and if we are prepared to learn from this lesson and act on it, we can make South Africa safe, for all.

The first step in our journey to a safe South Africa requires a shift in thinking and in language. This is not about a war on crime. It is about creating a safe society. It is about investing more in prevention and spending less (in the long term) on enforcement. It is about accepting that punitive justice as an approach for security is what we've been focused on for a long time, yet we are no safer - and that restorative justice is an option that is based on abundance and possibility and sustainable safety.

It's about accepting that creating exclusion zones and building fortresses does nothing but feed our fear and escalate violence. Action for a Safe South Africa is about rebuilding our society from love and nurture, fixing our communities one kind act at a time.

Trauma
Trauma is described as an event in which we either perceive our own life or the life of someone dear to us as threatened, or in which such life really is threatened. In South Africa today the risk of non-natural death is considerably higher than for instance in developed countries (Matzopoulos, 2003/2005; NIMSS data MRC & UNISA, 2004).  For each of the last ten years, we have recorded an average of 2 million serious or "priority" crimes and at least one third of these have been so-called contact crimes - the kind that make us feel our lives are threatened (SAPS Crime Statistics, 2006/07).

Post-traumatic stress is a normal response to trauma - an abnormal event. Post traumatic responses include some but not necessarily all of a range of symptoms including sadness, a sense of loss, fear, distrust, an elevated startle reflex, irritability, depression, an inability to look forward to things and to make long term plans (Davis and Snyman,2005; Burton et al, 2003). Women often experience anxiety and depression; men feel that they cannot protect their families and they become angry and may seek revenge. We all feel at times overwhelmed and as though control has been taken away from us (Holtmann, 2001). Post-traumatic stress disorder occurs where these symptoms do not gradually decrease to a point where normal life continues.

Although we often don't recognise them as such, the impacts of sustained and widespread experience of crime and violence is visible in such manifestations as increased corruption, lawlessness, high levels of domestic violence, road rage and a general intolerance and alienation (see Du Plessis:2001). It also of course feeds into our compulsion to spend upwards of R46 billion a year on private security, despite evidence that it has not improved our safety (Schönteich, 1999, 2002; Berg, 2007).

Law Enforcement
Spending on security often does little more than displace crime (Abrahamsen, 2007). Typically when the opportunity for crime is reduced through a security measure (either public or private), it is either displaced to another location which is less well fortified or to another kind of crime (Irish & Schönteich, 1999; Karina Landman & Schönteich, 2002). Although no crime statistics are available to verify the trajectory, we remember that in the 1980's for instance, burglary from homes was quite common. Stories were often told about how an unbarred bathroom window would be used to send a child into an unoccupied house to open it for adult thieves.

Since then, the level of security in middle class suburbs has escalated in such a way that they are hardly recognisable as the leafy friendly environments they used to be. Today it takes much more than a child to breach the fortress-like walls and security systems. This goes some way to explaining why house robberies now by far outstrip burglaries in number - today it takes an organised gang of robbers to get in, very often with the unwitting help of the homeowner, when electric gates are opened for their own or a guest's access to and from the home (Schönteich & Louw, 2001). Opportunistic thieves have been replaced with organised, armed robbers (Schönteich & Louw, 1999, 2001).

Understanding the Cycle of Crime and Violence
Crime and violence are perpetuated in two kinds of cycles. The first, most immediate and obvious is that when someone is hit he hits back. This is something that many boys are taught at an early age as a strategy to deal with victimisation and by the time boys become men, it is often ingrained and habitual (Simpson, 1996; Du Plessis, 2001). The second kind of cycle is perhaps more complex, but both compelling and very damaging. This cycle is perpetuated from generation to generation (CSIR Crime Convergence Models, 2006; Du Plessis, 2001; Simpson, 1996). Violence is a part of daily life for many children who from a very early age are either directly victimised or abused or they witness violence as a normal part of home or community life (Friedman, 1998; Fraser-Moleketi, 1998; Nel, 1999). Physical contact is normalised as being about conflict and violence and not about love and nurture.

As the model illustrates, this exposure of our children to violence is in itself of course a violation of their most basic rights (Child Justice Bill and SA Constitution, 1996). Our need to intervene to prevent such abuse and, where we have failed to prevent it, to treat and mitigate it, is unquestionable as a priority as our democracy moves towards maturity. The damage to our children in the immediate term is obvious and unacceptable (Muntingh, 2003; Palmary & Moat, 2002). The damage to our society as a whole has a long term and frightening aspect.

Not all victims of violence will go on to offend. Research however shows that the overwhelming majority of violent offenders first experience violence as victims or as bystanders to violence (Barnes, Welte & Hoffman, 2002; Simpson, 1996). Over and again, studies where the respondents or the focus of the research are violent offenders, researchers make the connection between early childhood trauma and later aberrant or violent behaviour (Bartol, 2002; Kurtz et al, 2002). Yet no matter how obvious this pathway may be, we tend to ignore the plight of our children when they are vulnerable and wait for them to become a threat to our own vulnerability before we address the problem - by demanding that the police and punitive criminal justice should respond as illustrated on the "left" hand side of the diagram (Palmary & Moat, 2002; Muntingh, 2003).

The connection between poverty and crime is complex. It is important to start by noting that millions of poor people, the vast majority, would not and do not commit crime (WHO, 1995). And while deep poverty may drive some people to steal, it is not theft but violent crime that we mind most. What is often ignored however is that poverty greatly increases vulnerability to crime and the impact of crime on poor people is often worse. They cannot for instance easily replace things that are stolen, nor do they have the same access to services and care that are available in better resourced communities (WHO, 1995; Emmett et al, 2007).

Poverty is also often entrenched by criminal activity. When a young man embarks on a life of crime, he often commits himself to a lifetime of poverty; stealing cell phones or even being part of a gang that robs cars or households will rarely make him rich. He inevitably removes himself from mainstream opportunities for development or a constructive career and he leads a much shorter, more risky and often more violent life than his law abiding counterpart. We have lost him to crime and he becomes a problem for our society rather than an opportunity.

Guns
The easy availability of guns in South Africa contributes much to our fear and to our experience of crime (Bassingthwaighte, 2007; Kirsten et al, 2005). Every day an approximate 66 guns move from the legally owned to the illegally used pool of guns (Kishalya, 2007; Kirsten, 2005). Police have estimated that each gun is used in the commission of up to eight crimes before it is recovered. This translates into a massive 192 000 new violent crimes enabled annually as a result of loss or theft of registered firearms (Bassingthwaighte, 2007). Guns put a massive burden on our already overburdened Criminal Justice System - there is a minimum sentence of 15 years for gun crimes and the longer each offender remains in the system the worse our overcrowding and the less likely it is that we can deliver effective corrective and rehabilitative programmes in our Correctional Centres (Sloth-Nielsen & Ehlers, 2005; Kirsten et al, 2006; Mistry & Minnaar, 2006).

Alcohol
The relationship between alcohol, crime and violence is once again both direct and complex (Parry & Dewing, 2006; Van As, 2004). In 2006, more than 47% of victims of homicide tested positive for alcohol at the time of death (Matzopoulos, 2005; Parry & Dewning, 2006; MRC, 2004). The offenders are harder to measure as they are either not caught at all or else have most often had time to sober up before they are caught. Alcohol makes us vulnerable to crime. It also makes many of us aggressive and encourages interpersonal violence. It is easy to become dependent on alcohol and dependency on substances of a range of kinds is a driver for crime - a habit needs feeding (Parenzee & Smyth, 2003; Parry, 2005; Open Society Foundation for South Africa, 2004).

There are too many illegal outlets for the sale and consumption of alcohol and owners of illegal establishments are often more likely than licensed retailers to commit other crimes such as extortionate micro lending, introduction of drugs into local communities and allowing under-age drinking (CSIR Central Karoo Study, 2006). Our social grant money is being spent on alcohol instead of on poverty alleviation.

Police estimate that at least 50% of rape victims are drunk or high at the time of victimisation (Jewkes & Abrahams, 2002). Young girls lose their inhibitions when drunk and are also more likely to have consensual unprotected sex, all too often with the consequence of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy (CSIR Central Karoo Study, 2006). It is hard to build a safe society on a foundation of accidental motherhood.

This is of course a simplistic analysis and such a complex subject demands much greater depth. Issues of migration, education and truancy, health care, employment and the delivery of services, patriarchy and the disparity between rich and poor are all a part of the picture and still leave it incomplete (CSIR Cycle of Violence Models, 2006). But this brief glimpse into the cycle that perpetuates crime and violence at least leads us to a range of intervention points and interventions to break this cycle and start a new and positive cycle that will perpetuate peace and safety (Lab, 2004). Perhaps many of our other pressing objectives will be easier to achieve in such a context.

Crime Prevention and Action for a Safe South Africa
Breaking the cycle is dependent first on achieving a shared vision of what it looks like when it is fixed. What is a safe South Africa: a fortress or a place where all our children can play safely in the streets and where school is a place of nurture and learning and women walk safely day or night and families can have an evening out without fear of hijack or being mugged; a place where we are locked behind electric fences or a place where we are free to come and go?

We need to re-imagine ourselves with the sound of young boys playing cricket in the early evening light and neighbours waving across the road, girls walking together to school, families eating supper in the garden (CSIR Strategy for Safer South Africa, 2006; Garbarino, 1999). We need to commit ourselves to a place where we trust each other again and rely on each other for support and care and the achievement of common goals (CSIR Strategy for Safer South Africa, 2006).

Understanding the cycle of crime and violence is a good place to start (Lab, 2004). If we acknowledge that today's violent offenders are yesterday's vulnerable children who have fallen through every crack in our society, then perhaps it becomes possible to begin our journey to a safe South Africa with more compassion and less anger, however hard that may seem (CSIR Strategy for Safer South Africa, 2006). Anger is a perfectly legitimate response to crime and violence but we need to acknowledge it and heal ourselves rather than use it as the basis for strategies aimed at making us safer.

We must intervene for the most vulnerable in our society, to protect and nurture our unborn and newborn children, to ensure that social grants are accessed and used to alleviate poverty as they are intended to do (HSRC, 2007). We need to supervise children and make sure they go to school every day of the school year, with food to stimulate their brains and a range of activities to keep them busy and help them find the things they are good at and want to do more of. We need to make our young people useful and have expectations of them instead of allowing them to be super numerical and to know that we neither need nor trust them (Garbarino, 1999). We need to intervene at the earliest possible point in the life cycle and offer those who make mistakes opportunities to rectify them instead of punishing them. 

To be safe in 15 years time, we must intervene for today's teenage pregnant girl and provide her with the support and information she needs to make her a better mother. We need her not to drink alcohol, take drugs or smoke cigarettes while she is pregnant. We need to equip her with the tools of new motherhood and help her bond with her newborn child and protect it from conflict, violence and neglect (Geyer & Roberts, 2001). If we do this successfully then in 15 years her daughter will not be pregnant and we need not fear her son for he will not be committing violent crime.

In a safe South Africa, there will be more love and less anger. This warm place holds a compelling vision and its worth working hard for. It has been written that the intervention of one caring adult can save a young boy's life and put him on a constructive path to adulthood (Garbarino, 1999); on this basis alone there is a role for each of us in achieving a safe South Africa, each one of us bringing to the process our individual skills, capabilities, love and humanity.

Conclusion
Action for a Safe South Africa is an inclusive and constructive social movement that is founded on good science, innovation and pragmatism.  It is at any time the sum total of the knowledge, commitment and creativity of all those who contribute to it. We believe that if we take this approach and apply ourselves to filling the cracks through which so many have fallen in the past, we will take our nation into a time when we will no longer contemplate increasing the spend and size of the Criminal Justice System, where our correctional facilities will no longer be hideously over-crowded and where we will no longer be driven by fear and distrust.

We will continuously support our actions with research, monitoring and evaluation; Action for a Safe South Africa will be a beacon of science in action for all South Africans.


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