Crime, conflict and politics in transition-era South Africa

Abstract

Despite the potentially catastrophic repercussions of South Africa’s violent crime epidemic, little progress has been made in understanding why violence has persisted and even escalated since the end of apartheid in 1994. Adopting an historical approach that highlights the persistence of urban violence throughout the twentieth century, this article focuses on the criminal dimensions of the ‘political’ conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s. The advent of democracy was not in itself sufficient to erase a deeply entrenched culture of violence produced by decades of repressive racial policing, violent crime and social conflict. Moreover, politicized hostilities and the continuing deterioration of law and order structures in the final years of apartheid gave birth to various groups that engaged in criminal violence and provided favourable conditions for well established criminal networks. Such elements were unlikely to put down their guns and relinquish power simply because politicians...