Inequality fuels insecurity - SA needs to address vast disparities

Confidence in the criminal justice system is on the decline.

This was revealed in the findings of Statistics South Africa's Victims of Crime Survey released last week by Pali Lehohla, statistician-general.

The decline in confidence coincides with the recorded increase in violent crime including robbery, assault and murders, over the past couple of years.

It would seem that there is a general sense of insecurity among the South African populace. And citizens increasingly feel that the country's law enforcement is inadequate to provide them with the protection they need.

Police have been found wanting on many occasions when it comes to preventing and protecting shop owners, South African and non-South African, when opportunistic community members go on looting sprees.

Similarly, police response to the xenophobic attacks that have spread sporadically across the country, and yet had a hint of orchestration, have inspired little confidence.

An important question to ask is why police have been inadequate in dealing with the increasing incidence of violent crime, including looting and xenophobia?

Policies on policing have lagged behind the social dynamics in the country in recent years.

Cross-country studies have found that there is a credible correlation or a causal relation between levels of income inequality and violent crime. Inequality is a driver of violent crime.

Based on World Bank indices, SA is the most unequal country in the world, with a Gini coefficient of 65.0 (a measurement of the inequality in the distribution of family income in a country). SA has the greatest disparity of wealth between the bottom 10% of the population and the top 10%.

GDP growth rate coupled with the gini index are significant determinants of crimes like robbery and murder.

Many citizens are landless, they live in informal settlements. Just about five million working-age people are jobless and frustrated. There are millions who struggle to get food daily.

This is the situation in the townships and crowded city centres where violence and crime are usually concentrated.

Those who are privileged to live in suburbs and on posh estates are shielded from these scenes.

Where inequality is high or increases, there will be an increase in violent crime to a certain extent.

There is some evidence that indicates that economic growth and improvement in distribution of income that leads to a decrease in poverty can lead to a fall in crime rates.

The opposite is also true. If the growth rate is low and inequality high there is even greater probability of violent crime. This describes SA.

Were it not for the safety net that the government has provided through the provision of social grants, the picture of poverty would be worse than it currently is.

This should have informed policing strategies. Do our policy makers not follow trends or commission and read research?

The country's socioeconomic context requires a policing strategy that emphasises visibility and close interaction with communities, especially in poor areas, where people cannot afford private security.

Is this not why there was a drive to change the South African Police Service from a force to a service, meaning they would integrate into communities as partners and helpers to transform the apartheid perception of police as an enemy?

The increase in mob activity within communities, whether it be violent protests, looting or xenophobic attacks, reveals a failure of intelligence gathering on the part of law enforcement to pre-empt and prevent violence and crime.

Police don't seem to be a part of communities but are a distant arm that is called upon to threaten and scare community members after chaos has erupted.

A big part of effective policing in an unequal society such as ours is the building of intelligence networks in communities, especially where the poor are concentrated.

But the distance of police from communities is a reflection of the very policy makers who direct their strategy and activity.

President Jacob Zuma, ministers, MPs, provincial leaders and councillors must take responsibility for the discontent in communities. It is their distance and lack of responsiveness to community demands and their unwillingness to be present and to be seen to listen and empathise with the struggling masses between elections that foments community anger, that expresses itself in violence.

In addition, business must take responsibility. Income inequality is most apparent when you compare the annual salaries of top executives with the workers they lead. This glaring disparity is driving instability in the country.

CEOs and their executive teams take home millions, go to their fancy homes with no second thought for the workers who are paid a pittance. They don't know the conditions in which their workers live, if they can afford quality schooling for their children or if they eat a decent meal every day. It would seem they don't care.

Placing profit over the lives of millions of South Africans can no longer be the order of the day.

It is economic growth, a greater distribution in income that can best address the challenge of increasing violence and militancy in our country.

Xenophobia will not be solved by sending in the army. All it does is strengthen the perception that the police and law enforcement agencies in general are weak and unable to secure citizens' safety and prevent and combat crime.

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