By Mary de Haas
Johannesburg - Successive 2022 police crime reports confirm the continuation of long-standing, extremely high levels of serious violent crime, including murders, and horrific levels of violence against women and children.
Organised crime – which feeds other crime – trucking wars, and the sabotage of critical infrastructure, appear out of control.
Lawlessness reigns, largely unchecked by a faltering criminal justice system in need of urgent remedial action if there is to be any improvement in 2023.
Another priority is to address the widespread disregard for the sanctity of human life with roots in the type of familial and community environments in which criminals grow up.
The liberation ideals of 1994 have brought little by way of development to the vast majority of historically deprived communities in South Africa.
When referring to our abnormally high murder rate, the SAPS often claim that most are social fabric crimes, or that perpetrators are known to victims.
Substantiating evidence is lacking, for the conviction rate for murders is atrociously low.
Apart from the dearth of good detective work, the extensive use of hired hitmen, who tend to disappear, compounds investigative problems.
Firm evidence of motives may emerge in court evidence, but the context of some of the politically-linked killings often points to competition in or between parties for access to lucrative political positions and the tenders associated with them.
During 2022 victims of such killings have included those active in the ANC, IFP and EFF, as well as members of Abahlali baseMjondolo shack dwellers movement, who pose a threat to vested political interests.
There has been no let up in taxi-related violence, including attacks on buses, and suspicious fingers are pointed at long-distance associations based in KwaZulu-Natal as being implicated in attacks elsewhere.
The failure of the government to regulate this industry is disgraceful, but understandable because of links between politicians (and police) and taxi interests.
In October, bus company Intercape obtained an order to force the Department of Transport to protect its buses, with the judge pointing out that the Eastern Cape MEC had acted unlawfully in directing the bus company to “negotiate” with taxi operators, following attacks on buses. There is similar political complicity in KZN
The past year saw a worrying rise of crimes of economic sabotage, including of critical infrastructure such as water and electricity, and attacks and looting threatening the viability of the trucking industry.
"Business forums“ continued to interfere with building and infrastructure repair work through intimidation and extortion demands. The murders of four eThekwini employees in its water department may be corruption-related.
An estimated 40% of murders were committed using guns, facilitating the rise in numbers of mass killings during 2022.
The proliferation of guns and ammunition, too, seems out of control, with many guns going missing from police safekeeping (60 disappeared from one station in Gauteng), and no sign of any disciplinary action being taken against station commissioners.
Illegal guns easily find their ways into the hands of suspect security companies not necessarily registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (Psira). Such companies are prevalent in the taxi industry (where most hitmen are located) and may also be associated with companies established by politicians who dispense municipal guarding tenders to them. Again, there may be police complicity.
The political will to address the policing crisis in South Africa, which starts with nepotism linked to incompetence in managerial appointments, and is manifests in the lack of credible intelligence, poor detective training, and the widespread lack of discipline that leads to guns disappearing.
Torture, and deaths in police custody (217 in 2021/22) continue unabated because there is no functional independent oversight.
Six years after the Constitutional Court ordered the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) independence, the bill which has finally found its way to Parliament is fatally flawed.
There is no absence of policy directives, issued by government appointed bodies, to form the basis for restructuring the SAPS and Intelligence Services.
That changes are urgent is clear from reports of the Panel of Policing experts in March 2018, the Expert Panel on State Security report of December 2018 and the Zondo Commission reports.
What is lacking is the political will, which is a manifestation of the crisis in governance, including Parliament.
The recommendations of Chief Justice Raymond Zondo need to be taken very seriously, stressing as they do the failure of Parliament to provide proper oversight facilitating state capture, and warning that it will easily re-occur if essential changes in governance are not made.
Every December we are reminded of the shocking rates of gender-based violence. For any real improvement, improved protection from the security agencies should be accompanied by remedial preventive action.
This violence knows no racial or class boundaries, but women and children in poor communities, deprived of decent services and facilities, are generally the most powerless of the victims.
The extent of damage to black family life by apartheid, and the serious trauma caused to children by the political violence in KZN have never been adequately addressed.
Traumatised children, and those growing up in families in which there is parental abuse, will perpetuate that violence in their own families.
Constructive interventions to break that cycle of violence have been lacking. Far too often, loving, non abusive parental role models are lacking to provide the guidance, and examples needed to guide the development of a sense of right and wrong in young children.
Parental supervision is often also lacking, raising questions about whether the rape of children by their peers is linked to access to pornography – since children tend to imitate adult behaviour.
There are so many developmental initiatives our well-funded government could have made, including the deployment of well trained social workers or counsellors in schools to monitor teacher conduct, teach life skills, and support abused children. It has squandered the birth right of our children on its own gross extravagences.
The crisis in governance we are facing now is similar to that of the 1980s, but the difference is that then there was a broad-based civil society movement for change.
Faith-based organisations played a pivotal role, and although many still do community and youth work, far too many are missing in action in their communities, and in social justice work.
Current civil society initiatives need expanding and – of utmost importance – everyone who votes for a party representative must demand personal accountability, if we are to start a slow journey to ensure good governance based on our Constitution. Only then can the problem of violent crime be adequately addressed.