Crime with Violence in USA and Sa

The Black Americans in the United States have faced many unique issues. One of the matters that have prevailed in many years is that of crime with violence. Essentially, this has not only been an issue in the United States but has also been a prominent problem in South Africa. On reflection, criminal violence has been the worst problem that the two countries have faced in the last two decades.

The number of firearms available in the Black American market was exceedingly high. It is evident that the rate of acquisition of weapons among the black American community is the largest factor that causes the huge crime rate. In the early part of the 1980’s, most of the crimes charged for were related to the use of firearms (Bennett and Fraser 94). Surprisingly, 46% of the number of murders that were committed during this period were as a result of the use of firearms. Instead of the problem being dealt with, the percentage of these deaths increased up to seventy one. Considerably, this exceeds the number of homicides that were reported by whites by 17%. The increase in this number of cases can be largely attributed to the high increase of weapons available in the black market in most parts of Southern America. Therefore, it is due to the poor monitoring of the illegal sales of arms that the number of homicides increased.

Crime Rate in Black American Communities

The rate of violence in the Black American communities was exceedingly high. When compared to other countries, the number of violence cases in the United States among the Black Americans was surprisingly superior. For instance, it exceeded the number of those in both Germany and France by twenty-eight times (Bennett and Fraser 92). Astonishingly, these crimes were reported to be committed by members of the population aged between fifteen and twenty-four years. Additionally, in all the arrests made for these crimes, a percentage of twenty had a participant who was eighteen years and below. These statistics means that, practically, a fifth of the violent crimes in the United States involved an underage Black American citizen. In 1995, the count of violence cases in the United States by Black Americans was ten times more than that in Canada. Clearly, this is a very huge difference considering that the two countries neighbor one another. That shows that the number of crimes carried out by the Black American population was tremendous.

Targeting Young Black American Males

The high crime rate among Black Americans mostly targeted the young male populace in the United States. In 1990, most of homicidal cases were discovered to target Black American males by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (Bennett and Fraser 94). For every 27 men, one was likely to become a victim of homicide. Additionally, the highest number of these cases involved men between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four years. The number of crime victims within this age was around one hundred and thirty two out of one hundred thousand youths. Among these crimes, most of them ended up in deaths and fatal or permanent injuries. It is important to mention that these crimes were mostly gang-related. Therefore, this suggests that a majority of the crimes were due to cases of drug smuggling, robbery, gang fights, and issues involving initiation into the particular gangs as male youth are the highest targets for criminal gangs.

Crime Rate in South Africa

The rate of criminal violence in South Africa is also very high. Similar to the black American society, South Africa was among the top countries worldwide in terms of violent crimes. In the later part of the 1990’s, South Africa had a murder record of sixty out of every one hundred thousand people (CSVR3). Although the numbers decreased in the period between 2008 and 2009 up to thirty nine per one hundred thousand people, it still was very high if compared to other nations. Additionally, robbery by violence was another act of violent crime that was very prominent in the country (CSVR3). In the year 2000, South Africa recorded the highest number of car robberies in the world: 87% of these robberies were done at gunpoint. Similar to the Black Americans, violent crime was very prominent in South Africa.

High Number of Firearms in South Africa

The number of firearms among the citizens in South Africa was high. The white populace in South Africa was allowed to own guns. In the 1990s there were a lot of conflicts between the White South Africans and the indigenous population in the country (CSVR4). This saw to it that ownership of guns by the whites for purposes of self-protection was legalized. Consequently, this saw to it that the circulation of guns in South Africa was doubled. These guns were also given to the black allies in order to help support the apartheid rule (CSVR4). The illegal acquisition of arms in the black market also multiplied during this period as whites who had the ability to own guns sold them to criminal mobs in the country (CSVR6). This is very similar to the situation in the black American population as in both cases guns were the weapon that was used in most of the robbery and murder cases. For instance, in 2000, guns were the main weapons used to rob cars in South Africa making it the region with the highest number of car robberies.

Discrimination and Crime

Discrimination was a large factor that led to the high crime levels. In South Africa, there was a lot of colonial oppression in the 1980’s and 1990’s (CSVR5). The colonists residing in the country did not offer important job opportunities to the black populace in the country. Unfortunately, this caused poverty among the indigenous Africans, later resorting to indulgence in other means of earning; theft (CSVR5). Many criminal gangs were formed and they antagonized the well-off occupants of the country. On reflection, this situation was very similar to that of the Black Americans. In the 1990’s, most of the Black Americans were not employed in the lucrative jobs in the United States (Bennett and Fraser 100). This discrimination resulted in violent crime in both countries.

Possible Solutions

There were some measures that could have been taken to solve the crisis in these areas. One of the measures would have been to provide cheap or free health care and education to the areas that were most affected by poverty. This would have reduced the living cost for the black American community and the people of South Africa, and thus, improving their living standards and reducing the number of robbery cases. Additionally, the governments of both regions would have done regular expeditions in search of weapons owned without a license. Another remedy would be to eradicate the criminal groups in the United States and South Africa as that would reduce cases of crime and the number of youths being initiated into the security in urban centers where most of these crimes took place. With these measures in place, the rate of violent crimes would not have been so imminent on the Black Americans and South Africans.

Considerably, the surge of criminal violence has been the worst problem that has been faced by the Black Americans and in South Africa. This is evident from the tremendous number of murders and violent crimes that occurred in South Africa and United States due to the pilferage of firearms.

Works Cited

1. Bennett, Daniel, and Mark W. Fraser. “Urban Violence among African American Males: Integrating Family, Neighborhood, and Peer Perspectives.” The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, vol. 27, no. 3, ser. 7, Sept. 2000, pp. 93–117, scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&referer=https://www.google.com&httpsredir=1&article=2666&context=jssw.
2. CSVR. Why Does South Africa Have Such High Rates of Violent Crime?, 7 Apr. 2009, www.csvr.org.za/docs/study/7.unique_about_SA.pdf.