A columnist in the American journal Business Week pointed out in the New Year that the single most important improvement in the quality of life of Americans during the past two decades has been the fall in crime. This, he said, had punctured the views – commonly trotted out in South Africa – that poverty and inequality, the breakdown of family and societal values, and a decline in morality are the major causes of crime.
Since the early Eighties, income inequality has widened in the United States, traditional families have continued to break down and there has been no obvious recovery in morality.
An ostensibly more puzzling paradox has arisen, though: there are more people in jail in the US than ever before (roughly 1% of the population). A New York Times headline trumpeted recently: “Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops”.
In fact, it is no paradox at all. What is happening is that the propensity of courts to convict and imprison criminals has made a major contribution to the fall in crime. “Persons behind bars cannot commit crimes against the public, and many have been deterred from a life of crime by the increased prospect that they would spend a considerable time locked up,” says Business Week.
If we invert this equation, as we must for South Africa, we can start to see what has gone wrong in our country. We do not have what most other countries would call a police force – there is barely any visible policing, and statistics show our police officers are more likely to commit a crime than civilians.
Our conviction rates are laughable – new police figures this week show that only 2% of hijackings result in a conviction in our hopelessly clogged-up courts. Crime, particularly serious violent crime, has become a low-risk occupation.
This government’s biggest failure has been its inability to reverse the collapse of the criminal justice system and the rule of law.
The root of the problem was its decision to treat the police as just another branch of the civil service – instead of taking on board that the force’s raison d’tre had been to uphold apartheid with any means possible at the expense of developing normal policing. Those white policemen whose professional lives were spent hunting and torturing members of the current government can hardly be expected to serve and protect those same men and women. It is little surprise that many of them have turned to crime.
Our Cabinet ministers and police bosses have given no indication they understand how serious the situation is. Instead, they announce statistics and half-baked public relations designed to prove the crime rate is declining and that successes are being achieved. They may have fooled themselves, but – on anecdotal evidence of hijackings, rapes, murders and robberies – there is hardly anyone in the major centres of our country who would agree that things are improving.
Simply passing the buck or massaging the figures won’t help. Investor fright and emigration are not the only consequences of letting this nightmare continue. What of the ordinary citizens who have to cower in fear behind padlocked doors at night?
There are many policemen and policewomen of all colours who put their lives on the line every day to protect the community. In return for the traumas and dangers attendant on the job, they are paid a derisory pittance. Massively improved salaries both for the police and the prosecutors who uphold the justice system in the courts are becoming almost mandatory. But it must be tied to a policy of weeding out the incompetent, the corrupt and the sinister.
The old-guard infrastructure in the police still exists – despite the valiant efforts of Azar Cachalia’s safety and security secretariat which, in contrast to Sydney Mufamadi’s ministry, appears to grasp the enormous problems surrounding the transformation of the force.
Why has there been no discussion of gun control? Why does the government not include a pledge to ban guns as part of the election campaign – after all, few of South Africa’s gun enthusiasts are supporters of the African National Congress? And why not show the electorate it means business by finding inspiring successors to the likes of Mufamadi, George Fivaz and Meyer Kahn?
As Business Week shows, we do not need to wait for drastic social reforms to kick in. There is a way to fight crime while preserving the hard-won civil freedoms enshrined in the Constitution – by apprehending criminals and sentencing those convicted of serious crimes to significant prison terms.
It is unfortunate that many of those criminals that belong behind bars come from our disadvantaged communities. At the same time, though, the people who will benefit most from the greater imprisonment of persons committing serious crimes are those in the poorest areas, who are most often the victims.
Countries that develop an effective system of apprehension and punishment of criminals won’t have a magic weapon against all crimes. But they will greatly improve the daily conditions of life for the vast majority of their citizens.