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There has been a pragmatic increase in the deviant act across South Africa. The statistics are puzzling and the question to ponder is; has South Africa turned out to be world`s crime capital.
South Africa has an extraordinarily high rate of murders, assaults, rapes (adult, child and infant), and other crimes compared to most countries.
In 2005 South Africa was ranked 3rd in the world on murder rates and I was puzzled to see that Around 50 people were murdered in South Africa each day.
In 2009 the police official data showed that there has been a decrease in murder rates and this reduction was due to improvements in the criminal justice system and policing. In contrast, there has been a vast increase in violence crime in South Africa.
A survey for the period 1998–2009 compiled by Statistics South Africa categorized South Africa second for assault and murder (by all means) per capita and first for rapes per capita in a data set of 60 countries. Total crime per capita was 10th out of the 60 countries in the data set.
They have also led research on the victims of crime which shows the image of South African crime as more distinctive of a developing country.
We perceive these Statistics as conventional quantities and we yield them for Granted. They reflect an unevenly territory in this country and clearly, the display reality including the fact that they exclude the unreported deviant act.
The focus has been proven to be ineffective as results; the reported deviant acts keep on mounting up the cliff. One may ask, “What is the problem?”
Well, we don`t need a Rocket scientist to figure it out. Mostly, we try to eradicate a tree by cutting off its branches not the roots. The have been a little focus on ruling out the source of crime and interim contrary to it, in fact; there is a little acquaintance about the sources as compared to the deviant acts.
The deviant acts in this country are mainly due to strains. Strains refer to events or conditions that are disliked by an individual. For instance, class comparison is one of the causes of strains. The gap between the rich and the underprivileged in South Africa is widening up daily. As a result, most people still lives in squatter camps confronted by poverty everyday. Poverty denotes the state of lacking adequate means to live. Such people feel deprived form the economy. A person can be in economic deprivation from any of three perspectives, namely: their income, expenditure/consumption, or asset possession. These three perspectives are evident in the discourse on poverty. Therefore, people try to find other means of departing from poverty thus; crime is a perfect scapegoat at some point. Most people engage in deviant behavior for survival however this fails to elaborate some cases such rape.
In addition, one fact that is uncontroversial is that inequality is extraordinarily high. South Africa’s Gini coefficient is almost certainly amongst the highest in the world (not the highest though, as is commonly reported).
A consequence of this high inequality is that South Africa has higher poverty rates than many other countries with comparable average income levels. While inequality between race groups is still very high, it has been declining of late, while inequality within race groups has been increasing. Such factors have played a gigantic stimulus in crime rates in South Africa.
Therefore, The easy way to eradicate deviant act it not to formulate policies or other forms of punishment rather find the source of this deviant acts and deal with them and surely, that will act as a huge reagent in fighting crimes. Employing more police officials won`t help in a long run rather empower the society in order to change their living conditions. Invest in education not because you want to keep children away from home but for the good of the country as a whole.
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