Many South Africans are fearful. To make matters worse, they do not feel in control of the circumstances which lead to their fear, so there is little respite. They are constantly looking over their shoulders or welling n the awful horror and shameful relief of the misfortune of others.

They grasp for solutions – and their own vulnerability and impotence makes them play out scenarios of
increasing vengeance and cruelty against the perpetrators and any who appear to be abetting them.
They look for atterns and conspiracies in the apparently meaningless and see spectres of their own
deepest personal fears and prejudices.

Violent crime threatens to undermine the social trust that enables a society to operate for the public good and private anarchy is unleashed.

The reality and the perception of crime is the most recent challenge to our wellbeing as a country,
and public solutions must be found.

But before public solutions – worked out jointly by citizens and their elected government – can be found,
South Africans must swallow their fear and look rationally and levelly at the dark beasts which seem to
roam our streets. What is needed is thoughtful passion, not thinly edged hysteria and anger, however
much these might feel personally appropriate responses to the injuries and traumas of the day.

That same wisdom and steadfastness is required now to deal with criminal violence.

First we must deal with our fear. And that means trying to understand and separate out what appears
merely to be a grey pall of undifferentiated despair.

During the 1980s I was involved with attempts to end the war in KwaZulu Natal.
It took place in the valleys and villages surrounding white South Africa occasionally spilling into their
streets and cities. But the level of white fear and panic was palpable, and it got worse the further one
was from the violence. Those who merely read in the media about killings in KwaZulu Natal feared for the
lives of their relatives, even if those killings happened 200 miles from their homes.

Local citizens get to know which roads and events to avoid, which situations are more volatile, how to
reduce their own risks. They adapt, even to the most appalling circumstances, if they are able to understand
and gain some level of control over them.

Is it possible then to understand the landscape of crime? At present a national study is being undertaken
which is looking closely at various forms of crime, at the circumstances and motivations of perpetrators
and the factors which might lead two young men from apparently indistinguishable backgrounds to choose
a path of criminality or well-adjusted behaviour, at the factors which may increase the level of violence in
these crimes, and at the impacts of various parts of the criminal justice system on crime and criminality.
But we do not need to wait for that study to notice that there are differences in the incidents being
reported and headlined, if we will but look harder.

1. Criminal violence against ordinary citizens

There is criminal violence against ordinary citizens. As I write this article a child has been shot during a
housebreaking, apparently because she made a noise. It is no good saying that such crimes are reducing
in percentage terms – they may be, but the number of victims continues to climb in absolute numbers.

As the number of victims grows, so does the number of people affected by this form of criminal violence.
Of course, the perception of kinship has also changed in today’s world – where celebrities enter one’s life,
mobile phones and email bring a larger circle of acquaintances to life, and even the stranger can rapidly enter
one’s own circle of knowledge because of the media and new ways of social mobilization. These are normally
good things, but they increase the anger and grief which results when someone is violently assaulted or killed,
and for which we are not necessarily psychologically well equipped.

This is an undeniable problem – we have underestimated the terrible social pathologies which are a legacy of
apartheid. We dislocated families, imposed on individuals and communities poor housing, inadequate education,
lack of hope, and internalized oppression over generations, however much some might like to suggest that apartheid
is being used just as an excuse. There are too many available guns, stolen from legal sources, left over from old
wars, or bought on a grey market. There are high levels of youth unemployment and underemployment.
Gangs are not the only section of the society glamourising the gangster life. HIV/AIDS demoralizes many
who are infected, but also adds stigma, undermines social cohesion, and increases individual and family
poverty – all of which compound the disaffections, alienation and ruthlessness which seems to pervade
criminal activity.

There is some comparative evidence that poverty alone is not a driving factor here but that inequality, in which
some appear to be living in unreachable opulence while others live in squalor, exacerbates resentment and
misplaced retribution.

So we have the perfect concoction to encourage criminal violence and it is hurting our citizens. But the criminal
justice system which should be winning the fight on our behalf is overburdened – extended case loads and backlogs
on the desks of detectives and in forensic laboratories and courts, and overcrowded prisons which cannot
therefore play their role in rehabilitation and reduction of repeat offending.

2. Organised criminal violence against institutions

There are a number of organised and well armed gangs and syndicates who supply vehicles and other goods on a
black market in and outside of South Africa. In pursuit of these aims, these armed gangs seem quite happy to shoot
first and cause mayhem during these attacks as part of their strategy. Ordinary people get hurt as do the police,
who are often late on the scene and outgunned.

Stopping these forms of organized and often highly visible crimes is not easy anywhere in the world – requiring
co-operation from the private sector, intelligence gathering, information from often fearful citizens, and a reduction
in the willingness of people to buy on the black market. However, it is made worse because we have many
unemployed soldiers in this part of the world - and many people hardened by stays in overcrowded and violent prisons.

3. Domestic violence

A quite remarkable amount of the violence reported in the media - which of course makes people very fearful and
adds to the general insecurity - turns out to be domestic violence. Family murders, murder-suicides, attacks on
small children, rapes and assault are committed within closed circles of apparently quite ordinary people. Indeed,
what appear to be random heinous crimes seem often to resolve themselves into as unimaginable domestic crises.
72% of all murders turn out to have been committed by someone known to the victim.

Many of the same stresses mentioned above play their role in the terribly numerous such crimes. Detectives talking
about their case loads note how many of their cases have involved the abuse of alcohol and other substances.

As a society, we seem to be bewildered at the levels of domestic violence. But expecting that the police will be able
to prevent this violence on their own is short sighted. As a society we will have to directly address many of the
aspects of our society which we have either inherited or unintentionally created. In addition, we are underestimating
the need for victim support and counselling to break the cycle in which victims then become perpetrators.

4. "Serial" murderers/rapists

For some reason, perhaps mentioned above – absence of fathers, abuse in families, lack of remedial attention in
childhood - South Africa seems to breed people who want to damage others. We are not the only society to do
this, and it may be that even the best ordered societies cannot prevent monsters from emerging.

However, the media and citizens love such cases and thrive on their gory details. At the same time they sow anxiety
and fear way beyond the likelihood of becoming a victim of these scarred people. Many have recently been caught
and so every day their crimes are repeated publicly while their trials are going on. On anniversaries, or at times when
the next ‘serial rapist’ is being sought, these cases are reprised by the media.

This adds to the impression of out of control criminality and violence. One cannot blame the media for this impression
as they are merely responding to the interests of their readers and the simple human fears and foibles of their staff
who themselves are citizens living each day in difficult circumstances. But perhaps one could expect a little more
discrimination and attention to complexity by them.

So when people sit down at a dinner table and the talk turns to crime, as it does, we do not keep a cool head.
Cash in transit heists, domestic violence, serial murders, attacks on individuals and institutions whether opportunistic
or planned, killings in town or country, Gauteng or KwaZulu Natal, crimes solved and unsolved, on trial and with criminals
behind bars, victims known to us and strangers, celebrities or unknowns, all pile up to panic us and depress us without
any sense of a way out. And what we experience at the dinner table is what we experience in the media – from the
first colour picture or crime scene chart of the day, through every news broadcast, violent crime – the first news and
therefore the dominant reality for many South Africans.

Our mindsets have to change.
While the criminality may not yet be under our control, and may never be entirely under the control of one person
or community – that after all is why societies employ police and prosecutors – how we choose to think of the problem
is under our control.

Thinking clearly will be considerably helped by a small menu of actions which can be taken by us.

• We can accept that crime is not just the police’s problem but is a social problem which is all of ours to solve;
• We can give more attention and resources to victim support and rehabilitation, thereby reducing trauma and fear
and the perpetuation of further crime;
• We can build a more equitable society;
• We can improve the qualifications, working conditions and effectiveness of social workers, police on the beat,
detectives and criminologists, prosecutors, prison wardens and teachers;
• We can make sure that criminality does not go unreported and that we do not purchase stolen goods;
• We can ourselves be law-abiding;
• We can provide support to the vulnerable in our communities and take back the public spaces that belong to us; and
• We can engage, whether through community forums, legislatures, or other forms of public action, with the police and
others in a collaborative effort to combat crime.

There is very little in South Africa that is not bedeviled by unresolved racial prejudice and suspicion, and unfortunately
dealing with crime is not immune from this. There are unfortunately still people who, 13 years after the establishment
of our non-racial constitutional democracy, seem to delight in every crisis as a confirmation that ‘the blacks will mess up,
just wait’. Equally, there still seem to be people so sensitive to this accusation that every criticism is interpreted as proof
that white people are just a bunch of prejudiced reactionaries.

When things go well, we navigate our way between these two extremes with equanimity. But as we all know, stress and
anger bring out the worst in us, whether in our private lounges or in public.

By now we must surely accept that crime is not aimed at one community or race group. I would hope that after 13 years
we could also accept one another’s good faith in trying to deal as best we can with the social crises that beset us.

So let me conclude with the one other thing which is happening and can happen not only in the Union Buildings but more
pertinently in every locale, not just for the good it will do for the society but also for the good it will do each person
involved to quell their own fear, improve their information, build confidence in their family and community, and generally
make life better for us all at the expense of criminals. In the President’s State of the Nation address in February this year,
President Mbeki said, “we are heartened by the resolve shown by leaders of the business and religious communities
further to strengthen such partnerships [between the police and communities] on the ground, and to give of their time
and resources to strengthen the fight against crime. Government will play its part to ensure that these partnerships actually
work, and that we all act together to discharge the responsibility to protect our citizens”.

It is time to see these leadership groups – driven by religious and business leaders together with other civic groups – arising
especially in those communities where virulent manifestations of crime and violence are felt.

By Paul Graham

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This article was first published in Catalyst magazine, a thought leadership publication published by Sanlam.

Paul Graham is the Executive Director of Idasa, an institute building democratic societies in Africa. Idasa has a Safety and Security Programme which interacts with policy makers and citizens in South Africa and promotes police reform in African states.