Reasons of The Increase of Crime in South Africa

Introduction

Crime can be described as an action that leads to an offence and consequences of being punished, because it is against the law. Punishments to criminal offences ranges on the kind of crime one has done, criminal offences include murder; robbery; rape and child neglect.

There are theories such as the Chicago school perspective that illustrate a picture of where crime is mostly prone to take place and the causes of it; and the Functionalism theory reflects on how single parented homes produce the most criminals due to parents lack to take responsibility for socialising with them correctly are liable to crime. How have sociologist made sense of crime and deviances?

The Chicago school perspective relatively explains places where crime is most prone to take place and explains what might be the impacts that lead to it. Martin & Louw elaborate more on the increase of crime in South Africa from 1994 till today, they state that it increased more as the years went by even when people thought violent crime would decrease after 1994 as this was the time when people stopped being oppressed they were able to voice out their problems and their rights were respected unlike in 1993 going down. According to statistic records it shown that crime in South Africa is found in major cities such as Johannesburg; Pretoria; Cape Town and Durban this could be due to the high population rates of people coming from rural areas such as Butterworth; King Williams Town etc. , going to these big cities in search for work but due to high employment rate they struggle to make a living as they have expenses themselves they decide to make amends by falling into crime so they will be able to provide for their families. The level crime does not affect all people uniformly, chances of an average person falling victim maybe influenced buy their age; income; their environment; the kind of friends they surround themselves with and knowledge they may have. The most people who are at great risk of becoming victims are the youth; the poor and township people. This however proves that the theory of Chicago school perspective which applies that crime is more prone among youth this might be due to families they come from and having responsibilities to take care of themselves and as well as their families in some instances. These crimes put at risk middle aged and wealthy suburban residents on having high risks of being victims of serious proper crime and violent crimes such as car high jacking and robbery.

Martin and Louw elaborated more on a few reasons why South Africa has high crime rate one of them was the Culture of violence they stated that the high rates of violent crimes experienced in South Africa refers to its political history assuming that families suffered from institutional violence for many years through the disruption of their lives by mass removals and migrant labour policies of apartheid. In the process of fighting for human rights and freedom of expression the youth was involved in particular, massive violence was unleashed in black communities which bred a culture of violent lawlessness and distrust in authority. Since then in the apartheid area little has been done to reverse these tendencies and draw young people back into a society governed by the rule of law. This led to South Africans quickly resorting to violence as means of solving conflicts whether in the domestic; social or work environment.

The study pointed out that South Africa is an heavily armed society, it was found that 4. 2 million firearms are legally possessed in S. A and possibly a similar number of firearms is estimated to be of illegal firearms circulating in South Africa. This results from the country borders allowing arm smugglers to bring large number of firearms in, these fire arms obviously sell cheaply because they are not legal making them accessible to criminals who use them to commit crime or resolve personal issues.

It was also pointed out the weak criminal justice system as also an effect of high crime rate, the main aim to have criminal justice system is to process cases effectively and making sure that perpetrators get appropriate punishment. The study found out the statistics of S. A crimes were very low as much as a high number of crimes were reported a few of this cases were processed and perpetrators were punished, yes there might be instances that some charges are false or other cases might be withdrawn by the complainant even though that was the case a few cases were not taken into consideration. Majority of crime in most societies committed by proportion of criminals, the estimated 10% or 20% of criminals are usually responsible 80% of all serious crimes.

Young black males from urban areas are most likely to be victims of crimes, this maybe due to the lifestyle, they’re easily influenced by their peers and peer pressure also plays a role in some instances one sees themselves as not developing and not finding a way to achieve their dream or changing circumstances at home they end up joining gangs with the hope of being someone big and being able to drive a certain car so that they can be part of the society or accepted by the society with the hope of changing in the future unfortunately once one is too deep in these gangs its hard to get out, joining them as well puts a high risk on their families because they become targets of opposite revivals and in order to get to the person they want in most cases they send a message by killing someone to the person they want. How crime in post-apartheid South Africa has impacted upon aspects of your life.

According to the Functionalism theory parents who fail to take responsibility of socialising with their children they tend to become prone to crime, not only them but single parented households also contribute quite a number of criminals not uniformly all single parented household but most of them this is due to children watching they’re parent struggle to make amends or in some situations experiencing hard times where an individual has to drop out of school to find a job to help at home because the parent can not afford to continue funding their education.

Well I come from a township in Port Elizabeth where crime is not such a threatening issue anymore because people have come to terms that it has come part of the society, a person can be mugged just in front of the community members and yet none shall try to help because they are also scared for their lives. In Port Elizabeth New Brighton has become one of the townships that is perceived as a home of gangster not only New Brighton but places such as Gelvandale as well where shooting takes place within the streets in broad day light. Where cars are high jacked anytime of the day even though arrests are made this does not stop it still continues. Bronwyn Harris (Harries, 2003) elaborated on how we still come across racial polarization and hatred within the communities; Inequality, poverty and access to justice remain key obstacles to establishing a human rights culture. High levels of mistrusts and violence continue to take place in societies. The study pointed out the meaning or symbolic sign of violence which in the past it was largely associated with politics but in the modern societies it commonly labelled with crime.

According to the study of Bronwyn Harris (Harries, 2003) we still live in the past, the geographic separation of cultures did not automatically dissolve with the Group Areas Act and related legislation, we still find majority of black people still residing in the outer areas of cities and as one comes close the CBD we get coloured people and Indians then in the centre of the city that’s where we find white people even though black to access this places according to law but segregation between this races places part. As much as people thought most things would change after 1994 and people will be able to exercise their rights this was just a statement because we still face spaces that define access resources; services and land; patterns of inclusion and exclusion; relationships of power both between socio-economic and political groups within specific communities. It is found that many other forms of violence are represented in race terms even though they are not labelled as black and white vocabulary e. g. “hijacker” commonly means the young black male criminal in white suburbia. Labelling this young people as criminals due to circumstances they’re in and not being able to achieve their desired dreams will only make them do as labelled because to them being seen as something you not makes no difference as being innocent so they might ass well fall into trap of doing the crimes they are associated with to prove a particular point of course not all of them fall into trap but majority does, to them its not about doing it for fun but to make amends with their families by providing for them and giving them something that their society describes or see it as its not something they can get.

Nowadays we get motivated to get educated so our future could be bright but reality is how many black people are given a platform and resources to get further education after secondary and achieve their dreams, yes there are bursaries and all that are seen as stepping stone to a brighter future reality is how many black youth are given the opportunity to access tertiary institution its either they don’t qualify for doing a course they love because they did not perform well or the isn’t enough spaces to take a particular number of students in the course and so on, this also contributes to high crime rate as they have nothing to do but roam around streets because currently South Africa is facing high unemployment rate as well.

Suggestions of sociological solutions to the problem of crime. • Criminal justice systemMartin and Louw states that for criminal justices to be successful it must arrest someone for a crime they did, convict and sentence most of the core groups that repeat crimes whether it’s the same or a different crime. • Proliferation of firearmsThe South African border army should be very strict on looking at what enters the country and whether it is legal or not if they are not further steps should be taken into consideration of what will be done in order to stop this, firearms that are already circulating with the country that are not legal should be found and taken and a decision should be made on what will be done with them. • Youth PopulationYoung people should be given more education on how to avoid peer pressure; choose friends wisely and how to make good decision that will implement a better future for them. They should be given resources to further their education and after given proper training for they to get experience and hopefully once they are done with a particular course they get to be employed within 6 months in a field relating to what they did.

Conclusion

Crime in South Africa has become a tradition especially in townships where most people are not working and young people are facing hard times with reality. As much as people thought the rate of crime would decrease after 1994 unfortunately this was not the case it just increased more. Single parented homes contribute to the countries criminal and unfortunately South Africa is one of the countries that has a high number rate of single parented homes and child parented homes this could be due to both parents passing or deciding to leave their homes. Most crimes take places in major cities as there are many young people who left their homes in search for work opportunities in big cities only to become criminal in order to make ends meet and supporting themselves.