South African Crime Quarterly 37
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In September the Minister of Police and Commissioner of Police released the annual crime figures (2010/11) for South Africa. As we have come to expect, the announcement was followed by a week-long media focus on crime. Since the high rate of crime still is a major concern for South Africans it is not surprising that this occasion attracts enormous media attention. And in many ways the media focus creates the space for researchers, academics and activists to raise awareness about the complexity of the risk factors for crime perpetration, challenge misperceptions and misunderstandings and offer their views on the solutions. Unfortunately few actually take this space and use it effectively.
Two days before the crime statistics were released the World Health Organisation and Ministry of Health hosted an international conference on violence prevention in Cape Town. The conference brought together researchers, academics, government officials and NGOs to share evidence about local and global initiatives that show promise in reducing violence. That conference was followed by another, organised by the UCT based Safety and Violence Initiative, which again brought together an impressive array of local and global experts on violence prevention. Yet, the voices of these experts were largely missing from the very public discourse that played itself out in the days following the release of the crime statistics.
One reason for this is that those who work in the areas of safety and violence prevention feel frustrated by the release of the crime statistics by the police. They argue (correctly, I believe) that the perception created by the very public release of the crime figures by the police each year is that policing and the criminal justice system offer the solution to high crime rates. This reinforces the oppositional notion that criminals are ‘other’ and that more police, more prosecutions and harsher sentences are the way to deal with crime. This is the very antithesis of the discourse of safety and violence prevention. However, by not engaging in the media storm the public was denied insight into the very practical and important work that is being done in relation to violence prevention.
It is true that television, radio and print media do not offer a forum for public engagement that allows much space for nuance and the presentation of complex data. However, I believe that the research and academic community would gain much by using the space created by the release of the crime statistics to advocate for the kind of social interventions and attitudinal change that will improve safety in the long run.
The crime statistics offered a very mixed picture. The much-publicised good news was that most categories of violent crime went down in the past year. Murder in particular continued its downward trend with a 5,3% reduction since 2009/10. The bad news is that while the overall murder rate decreased, the murders of women in fact increased by 5,6%. Since it can be assumed that at least a portion of those murders are the consequence of intimate partner violence, the findings of the study presented in this edition of SACQ by Lillian Artz about why women do not complete the process of obtaining a protection order against their abusive partners is of particular relevance. Most importantly it shows the enormous limitations of any criminal justice response to domestic violence.
Also in this edition, Leon Holtzhausen argues for a clearer definition of criminal justice-related social work so that social workers in this field can receive the necessary specialised skills and knowledge; Jameelah Omar claims that prisoners have a realisable right to rehabilitation in South African prisons; and Patrick Mutahi presents an innovative view of the role of criminal gangs in Kenya. We conclude this edition with an interview by Chris Botha with Peter Tinsley, who offers an international perspective on police oversight.
Chandré Gould (Editor)
