Casper Lӧtter

Ramaphosa’s quick release of Zondo’s report a bold but dangerous move

Opinion Casper Lӧtter - 15 Jan 2022

Probe findings may result in little more than a Pyrrhic victory as kingpins go free

What the Omicron variant and Mashaba’s election ticket have in common

Opinion Casper Lӧtter - 1 Dec 2021

Stigmatising the marginalised is driven by vested interests, both in the case of African foreign nationals subject to xenophobia and South Africans facing economic doom

Torture is not limited to CIA black sites – it’s alive in South Africa’s prisons

Opinion Casper Lӧtter - 3 Nov 2021

Unlike the US, it is not foreigners that are subjected to torture and cruel treatment, but South Africans

Fraser saves Zuma from prison – again

Opinion Casper Lӧtter - 10 Sep 2021

The correctional services commissioner (and former spy boss tied to state capture) overruled the medical board’s dismissal of the former president’s application for parole

The incarceration of Jacob Zuma is poetic justice

Opinion Casper Lӧtter - 7 Aug 2021

During his tenure as president he enabled state capture and the building of the prison industrial complex

uBaba’s not ageing out of crime: what is his game?

Thought Leader Casper Lӧtter - 2 Jul 2021

Jacob Zuma’s relentless attack on the judiciary had a setback when the constitutional court sentenced him to 15 months for contempt. But will this achieve its purpose?

Zuma’s mollycoddling is justified criminologically, but not the damage he did to the country

Thought Leader Casper Lӧtter - 17 Mar 2021

The attempts of the ANC’s top six to convince the former president to attend the Zondo hearings is a good example of an integrative shaming measure

Why the Big Fish escape the justice net

Opinion Casper Lӧtter - 4 Dec 2020

The small fish get caught. Jails are used to control the poor and disorderly and deflect attention from the crimes of the rich and powerful.

Peacemaking criminology as ubuntu: A reply to Thuli Madonsela

Thought Leader Casper Lӧtter - 19 Nov 2020

If the rich and powerful are afforded amnesty, then so too must the poor who are often pushed into lives of crime

Merchants of despair

Opinion Casper Lӧtter - 14 Aug 2020

When imprisonment becomes a business, the profit motive rears its head at the expense of the good of the prisoners. Three recent books deal with the murky workings of the prison-industrial complex in South Africa

Vigorous policing of petty crime during the pandemic suggests a Pyrrhic defeat

Coronavirus Casper Lӧtter - 29 Jul 2020

The ideological aims of the criminal justice system in dysfunctional societies, like South Africa, is to indirectly legitimise the inequitable economic system