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Getting
Away with Murder
A
shocking new report by United Christian Action presents
evidence that South Africa’s murder statistics are
even worse than official statistics have so far admitted.
For
every 1000 crimes committed in South Africa, only 430 criminals
are arrested. Of these, only 77 are convicted and barely
8 of these are sentenced to two or more years of imprisonment.
It is also calculated that South African convicts have a
94% recidivism rate (that is, 94% of all persons released
after serving a sentence immediately become involved in
crime again).
Serious
Underreporting
The 22-page United Christian Action report by Robert
McCafferty, is based on original source documents, government
archives, the Central Statistics Service, Interpol, the
South African Medical Research Council statistics, and many
other sources. The Report casts serious doubt on the South
African government’s claim that the murder rate has
been decreasing.
Victims’
surveys have consistently uncovered between 60% and 70%
more crime than reported by official sources. Upwards of
50% of crime in many serious categories goes unreported.
Statistical
Discrepancies
While police crime statistics show that there were 21
683 murders in the year 2000, the Medical Research Council
puts the figure at 32 482. The MRC’s estimate is close
to the figure from the Department of Home Affairs, which
is 30 068. This is a third more murders than reported by
the SAPS, a discrepancy of more than 10 000 murders.
So,
while the Democratic Alliance leaflet “Fight Crime”
puts the average daily murder rate in South Africa at 55
murders every day, the Medical Research Council’s statistics
reveal that 89 murders are committed, on average, every
day in South Africa.
Interpol
claims even higher numbers of murders in South Africa. While
the SAPS claims that there were 26 883 murders in 1995,
Interpol claims that there were 54 298 “murders known
to the police” in 1995/96. Interpol’s figures
are approximately double the numbers of “recorded murders”
in South Africa.
According
to Interpol, South Africa has the highest recorded per capita
murder rate of the countries covered in their report for
1998, second only to Columbia. In that year, Interpol recorded
the per capita murder rate in the USA as 6 per 100 000,
while in South Africa it was 59 per 100 000.
Organised
Crime
A report from the World Economic Forum claimed that
South Africa’s organised crime was second only to Columbia’s,
with its frightening drug cartels and Russia, with its omnipresent
mafia. Their report claimed widespread corruption in the
South African police service – where one in four police
officers in the greater Johannesburg were under criminal
investigation at the time of the report.
Police
estimate that there are currently “about 700 extremely
well financed and superbly armed crime syndicates operating
in and from South Africa.” However, it was also reported
that “not a single ring leader of any of the 700 crime
syndicates operating in South Africa has been arrested.”
The
Failure of the Criminal Justice System
In 2000, only half of all murder cases were sent to
court, and only 4007 of the ‘official murders’
resulted in a guilty verdict. The MRC reported 32 482 murders
in 2000. This means that for every 8 murders in 2000, only
one murderer was convicted. Obviously there is a delay factor
to sentencing; however, the murder rate has been consistently
high and the conviction rate considerably low by comparison.
One
report is quoted claiming: “Despite the President’s
boast that South African crime statistics are improving
– with reductions in incidents of some serious categories
of offences – other figures showing the decline of
convictions suggest that the forces of law and order are
alarmingly on the retreat. Convictions for using and dealing
with drugs, for example, collapsed …”
Alcohol
Abuse
Alcohol abuse is also shown to go hand in hand with
South Africa’s culture of violence – “according
to the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System, 56%
of homicide victims sampled for blood alcohol levels tested
positive.”
The
Most Murderous Societies On Earth
The Nedcore Project has concluded that: “South
Africa and Southern Africa are probably the most murderous
societies on earth, even with the probable under-reporting.”
The Nedcore Project claims the results of their surveys
“underscore the fact that crime has become South Africa’s
pre-eminent sociological problem. It now eclipses even unemployment
in concerns of all South Africans.”
The
bizarre behaviour of the ANC government in, at one stage,
imposing a moratorium on crime statistics is also questioned.
The report shows that in the first seven years of ANC rule,
violence and crime in South Africa increased by 33%, officially.
Worse
Than War
The UCA Report on Murder in South Africa reveals that
according to the official statistics, in the 44 years from
1950 to 1993, there was an average of 7036 murders per year.
This covered the turbulent strife of the apartheid years
of warfare, conflict, terrorism, riots and repression.
However,
in the first eight years (of peace) of the new democratic
dispensation, under the ANC, an average of 24 206 murders
were committed each year. However, if the Interpol statistics
are accepted, then the murder rate in South Africa during
the ANC years has averaged 47 882 per year.
When
The Death Penalty Deterrent Is Removed
The report notes that the sharp exponential increase
of violent crime, particularly murder, in South Africa,
also coincides with the suspension of the death penalty
in 1989 and its abolition in 1996.
Official
Cover Up
Sharp discrepancies between official statistics and
those of Interpol and the Medical Research Council are considered.
One observer is quoted as saying that the “easiest
way for the police to reduce the crime rate is simply to
do nothing but record only those crimes where a case number
is absolutely mandatory …” Numerous experts are
quoted as suspecting “serious under reporting”;
“perhaps these figures are concealed for political
reasons’; “the reason for this under reporting
could be the desire to change the ongoing reputation of
South Africa as the crime capital of the world.”
Living
Behind Bars and Locks
Of course, few South Africans would need the impeccable
research documented in this report to convince them that
security has deteriorated and crime has escalated during
the last ten years.
No
matter what the official statistics may claim, many South
Africans remember a time when most children walked or cycled
to school on their own, when most homes were not surrounded
by high walls, razor wire and spikes. When homes did not
need burglar bars and security gates, alarm systems and
armed response companies and when many roads did not need
security booms. When vehicles did not need gear locks, steering
locks, alarm systems and satellite tracking devices. When
we did not carry such huge bunches of keys.
The
Releasing of Criminals
Not considered in this report is the impact of the early
release of well over 100 000 criminals including murderers
and rapists from South African prisons.
Some
Of The Causes Of The Crime Wave
However, the Crime Information Analyst Centre (CIAC)
of the South African Police Services is quoted as offering
some socio-economic explanations for the horrific crime
rates in South Africa: “Urbanisation of the youth …
extremely conducive to crime … the role of rapid, abnormally
high rates of urbanisation (and urban unemployment) …
when influx control was removed in 1986, it released a massive
urbanisation process … a massive influx of especially
young work seekers (economic refugees) to our cities from
especially neighbouring countries, but also from as far
afield as Nigeria, Morocco, Europe and China … at least
6 million undocumented immigrants live in especially our
cities … massive unemployment, with no extended family
(social support network) and subsistence economy to support
their basic needs. In the cities the only support they may
find is within their peer group. A very strong sense of
relative depravation and resultant rising expectations may
also develop. The difference between rich and poor in the
city is very obvious and stark. … during the years
of political struggle … many members of the former
security forces and liberation armies were trained in guerilla
warfare skills, like intelligence gathering, ambush techniques,
the handing of firearms and explosives, etc. Many of these
combatants are now out of work and many of these skills
can be used to commit hijackings, house and business robberies,
bank robberies and robberies of cash in transit.”
Disarming
The Potential Victims Of Crime
With the massive increase in organised crime, and violent
crime in South Africa, it is all the more incomprehensible
that the government should be turning their attention towards
disarming the potential victims through more rigid firearms
control laws, rather than re-instating the death penalty
as a deterrent for violent crime.
“When
the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the
hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.”
Ecclesiastes 8:11
It
is also an undeniable fact that criminals prefer unarmed
victims.
The
full report, Murder
in South Africa: A Comparison of Past and Present by
Robert McCafferty, is available from United Christian Action.
It can also be viewed on the web
Peter Hammond
United
Christian Action, P.O. Box 23632, Claremont, 7735, South
Africa
Recommended Reading
Security
and Survival in Unstable Times; Shooting
Back; South
Africa – Renaissance or Reformation? and Biblical
Principles for Africa.
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