VIJAY NAIDOO: Good Business Basics – ‘Death penalty’ and the nature of crime

We are fast becoming the murder capital of the world, with two violent deaths being recorded every two hours on average. We reached a new low (high?) last week, with 67 murders being logged across the country. This got me thinking about the death penalty debate: I realised that we do indeed have the death penalty in the country, unfortunately, it is being applied daily to the victims of violent crime, rather than the perpetrators.

On SAFM this morning, a caller lamented the blame being passed to SAPS and other security agencies for the skyrocketing crime rate, to all effects and purposes another pandemic afflicting us all, except that this one is self-inflicted. He urged citizens to look inward, because every perpetrator of crime is the product of a community and family. His argument was that these perpetrators are known to us, and we often revel in the ill gotten gains these crimes result in, either directly, or vicariously. Let’s unpack this for a moment.

Consider a family or community member employed in a mid-level government or private sector job who suddenly starts spending on luxury cars or moves into a palatial mansion after years of a comfortable middle-class existence. Sure, this could be on the back of a lottery jackpot, or inheritance from a rich relative, but such largesse would be relatively easy to confirm. How many family members really bother to interrogate the new status quo, even worse, should evidence of malfeasance be uncovered, confront the family member, or report them?

Then we get the ready market for ‘bargains’ either new or used, in communities. Who hasn’t been offered a brushcutter, appliance or power tool at a fraction of the price of a new one? The ready argument is that the purchaser would never be able to afford a new one, so why not? The unspoken one is the provenance of the item, more than likely obtained by violent means.

We remain a deeply unequal society, this fact confirmed annually by our ranking at or near the top of the global Gini coefficient tables. The Gini coefficient simply put, measures the difference in a country’s income levels between the richest and poorest citizens. Can this then be a justification for a violent rebalancing of the scales? Surely not, as there are other countries with comparable scores who are not in the grip of crimewaves such as we are experiencing.

While concerns are continually raised about the performance and integrity levels of the security services, particularly SAPS, I concur with the caller that until individual communities start being more honest and inward looking about the nature of crime and the perpetrators and their relationships with them, no amount of resources poured into the security apparatus will stem the tide of violence and lawlessness we live with daily.

Vijay Naidoo is the CEO of the Port Shepstone Business Forum. He writes in his personal capacity. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

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