Who Are The Criminals

If you hear “South Africa,” what are some pictures that come to your mind?

For many people, it’s: safaris, Table Mountain, wine, shark diving, Nelson Mandela, or apartheid.

For those digging just a tiny bit deeper, South Africa is associated with very high crime rates – interpersonal street crime, that is. When we think of crime in South Africa, what comes to mind are images of gang violence, robberies, and rape. They tell you you have to be careful walking by yourself both during the day and during the night, because you are likely to get robbed, especially as a foreigner. They tell you not to bring your valuables, because they draw too much attention to you. They tell you to dress conservatively, because you’re at increased risk of being a victim of sexual violence as a woman. When we think of crime in South Africa, we are made to believe that the greatest threat comes from the poor, those lurking around the street corners, observing their prey, and waiting for the perfect moment to attack.

When we think of crime in South Africa, do we ever think of white-collar crime? Do we ever think of tax evasion, corruption and bribery, or insider trading? Do we think of corporate misconduct in the mining and chemical industry? Do we ever think of the problems that cost the country millions of dollars each year? We don’t. Because those are acts committed by people of ‘respectability’ and higher social status. When we think of criminals, we don’t picture business professionals and government officials. We don’t think of those in business-style suits and ties, we think of those in prison-style orange suits. This problem is certainly not confined to South Africa, it’s a global phenomenon.

As sociologist Howard Becker identified, what we believe to be a crime results from society’s beliefs, values, and institutions. Whatever behavior we deem dangerous and in need of control is what we mobilize against. We create laws against that behavior and identify an appropriate punishment. Yet, while we like to believe that our laws reflect widely shared beliefs and values in society, that really isn’t the case. They are controlled by wealth, power, and social position. Take the U.S criminal justice system, for instance. If you take a look at the racial and socioeconomic composition of our prison population, you are tempted to interpret it as an accurate mirror of the injurious acts committed in society. Since the overwhelming majority of prisoners are poor and black or Hispanic, society believes that those are the people who pose the greatest threat to society. We tighten the laws around those people. We “crack down” on their communities. We demonize. We victimize. Of course, the media does its job as well by shaping and manipulating our collective conscience; and what we are left with is a distorted image of who inflicts harm and who is being harmed.

You won’t incarcerate a senior level manager. He’ll get his bail hearing, he’ll forfeit some of his assets, and off he goes. No orange prison suit. No additional number in the prison statistics. However, society suffers at least as much from the crimes committed by those in power. In fact, this is a gross understatement. But those who suffer from said crimes are not in the position to change the criminal justice system, let alone our value system and cultural interpretation of crime.

The issue of identifying who and what harms society and causes tension is especially pressing in the current context of South Africa, as the country is at a critical crossroads. While political apartheid has ended more than 20 years ago, the country has yet to dismantle economic apartheid – referring to the extraordinarily stark racial differences in wealth and employment and the absence of real economic freedom. The majority of the time, economic inequality is the root cause of much evil in society, including the racial tensions and social unrest we experience in South Africa. Hence, to move this country to the ‘rainbow nation’ envisioned in the Constitution, South Africa has to tackle the issue of economic inequality. And to do that, they inevitably also have to devote attention to those enjoying widespread impunity.

This post is not to say that street crime doesn’t exist in South Africa – of course it does. All I’m saying is that we have to be aware of the fact that the media, prisons, and even the streets are not an objective representation of crime and criminals.

All I’m saying is that we should all ask ourselves: who are we afraid of? Who harms us? Not just as individuals but as a collective, as a country? Who are the criminals?