Crime stoppers: frustrated by incompetent policing, South Africans are turning to private alternatives

Reason, June, 1999 by Jim Peron

One almanac recently described South Africa as "the world's most dangerous country" outside official war zones. In the last decade murder, rape, and robbery rates have all doubled. According to official statistics for 1997, South Africa had 63 murders and 134 rapes per 100,000 people, compared to seven murders and 36 rapes in the United States. There were 258 car thefts per 100,000 South Africans, 866 house-breakings, and 601 assaults. Appalling as these numbers are, they probably understate the crime problem substantially, since polls indicate that most South Africans do not trust the police. A 1997 survey by the Human Sciences Research Council, a quasi-government agency, found that about one-fifth of crime victims do not contact police.

The reluctance to report crimes may be partly due to the fact that in the last few years police participation in crime has skyrocketed. In 1997 a total of 15,326 police officers, almost 14 percent of the national force, were charged with crimes. Meanwhile, officials of the African National Congress, the ruling party, have been implicated as members of criminal gangs responsible for dozens of armored truck heists.

The police force has an absenteeism rate of about 30 percent a day. The government is able to find a suspect and get a conviction in only 15 percent of murders, 7 percent of rapes, and 5 percent of burglaries. (By comparison, the FBI reports U.S. clearance rates of 66 percent for murder, 51 percent for rape, and 13 percent for burglaries.) To make matters worse, President Nelson Mandela celebrated his 80th birthday last year by releasing 9,000 criminals early. The next day two of them murdered an elderly couple. Another released convict, who had been imprisoned for raping a 50-year-old woman and then hacking her to death, promptly tied up and raped his two nieces, 13 and 14, and went on to rape at least five other children.

Given the government's manifest failure to deal with surging crime, many South Africans are turning to private alternatives. These include not only gated communities for the wealthy but security services and self-help arrangements that benefit the middle class and poor. They have achieved striking successes, sometimes despite active opposition by the government.

The Residents Association of the Honeysuckle, an upper-class white area of Johannesburg, has raised about $16,000 to secure the neighborhood with gates and guards. It has also taken over park maintenance and installed its own street lights. Since residents took these actions two years ago, says association Chairman Giovanni Santoriello, the neighborhood has not had a single incident of crime.

In neighboring Sandton, also a wealthy area, residents are experimenting with road closures, stopping through traffic with barriers. Steve Margo of Sandton Precinct, a civic group, says: "The closures are working. People are now working together, walking in the streets, jogging and riding bicycles in safety." But ANC officials in the Johannesburg government charge that such measures are inherently racist because they divert crime from white areas. As closures proliferate throughout the suburbs, the government has said it will send in armed officials to remove them unless they are first approved by the city - a process that can drag on for years.

In Kensington, a middle-class Johannesburg suburb, residents have contracted with a private security firm, for armed protection. The firm hired about 90 previously unemployed men to patrol the streets, covering some 3,500 homes. Each street has its own bank account, and residents contribute to pay for the guard on their street.

Kensington resident Peter Hugo had been burgled eight times in 10 years but says that since the guards were hired last year the only crime reported in his area has been the theft of a car battery. Hugo also found that his household insurance rate fell by 25 percent. Residents are saving 150 rand ($27) to 250 rand ($45) a month as a result of this effect. "My contribution to the guards is mostly covered by the money I save on insurance," Hugo says. The Johannesburg Saturday Star reports another side effect of the program: "Before the new system, neighbors were largely strangers. Now, most people know each other and there are regular street parties."

But as with the street closures, the government is trying to stop residents from addressing the crime problem on their own. The national Security Officers' Board (aptly known as the SOB), which regulates private security companies, wants to close down the Kensington program. The SOB contends that the security guards, who haven't expressed any unhappiness with their jobs, are underpaid. "I don't care that this company has reduced crime," says SOB head Don Masterson, "because they are doing it by breaking the law themselves."

The SOB has raided the security company s offices, seizing its records. Last year, an SOB official turned up unannounced at a private meeting of Kensington residents, who ordered him out. In response, the SOB has filed a defamation suit against one resident and brought charges of obstructing justice against another, Glynn Evans, who observes, "At least we give people jobs, even if their salaries are not great."