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BITCH ABOUT CRIME - VOCIFEROUS COMPLAINTS DO REGISTER Be furious about crime but don't emigrate. The current wave of anger about crime is bearing fruit. The president has taken note and the minister of safety and security is chastened after his gaffe advising complainants to leave the country. I'm told that even Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi has taken note of the national demand for action. The big guys fear for their jobs and are kicking butt to some effect. SAPS is trying to improve its appalling management systems. Progress in the courts is glacial. Delays and postponements remain the order of the day. A number of murders have been committed inside court buildings and yet security is lax. (My keys have twice set off a beep at the security screen at the Pretoria High Court. It could have been a gun or a knife but no-one accosted me. The Big Business Working Group, together with Business Against Crime (BAC), have new energy and are making a difference. So keep on bitching! This is a business forum, so I'll spend a paragraph on the economic impact of crime. It is profound. Economies thrive on optimism and confidence and crime undermines both. It makes us reluctant to employ people. It forces firms and households to spend inordinate amounts on security. It encourages emigration of expensively trained people in a world crying out for talent. Our shocking reputation deters foreign traders and investors from even setting foot here. It keeps tourists away. It's violent crime that is most detestable. Something like 80% of contact crime (the euphemism for murder, rape, attempted murder and assault) occurs between people who know each other. And something like 80% of these occur under the influence of alcohol and drugs. That's a consolation for peaceable, quiet living people who avoid shebeens, nightclubs and other dens of iniquity. It also suggests that better control of alcohol and drugs would make an enormous difference to our homicide rate. It would also do wonders for safety on our roads. Our apathy is astonishing. We wring our hands about 18 000 murders and 12 000 road deaths a year, yet do so little about it. Those 30 000 crime and accident victims represent a Boeing 747 crashing every four days. It is 60% of American casualties in Vietnam every year. I'm not advocating prohibition. I love a toot or two at the end of the day and know about the evils of the Al Capone era. But somehow we need to learn how to drink responsibly. The Australians, the Germans, the Czechs and others imbibe more per capita than we do but seem to do so in better humour. It is said that only half of South Africans drink at all. Women, in particular, eschew fluids that befuddle. The implication is that part of our society imbibes a disproportionate amount. If so, anti-booze campaigns should focus on that drunken minority. SA Breweries, Distell, the KWV and other purveyors of liquor publish drink responsibly adverts sparsely and with little conviction. They seem aimed at the elite that doesn't drink much. One wonders whether they could not change the message of their advertising from booze = strength and sex appeal to something more appropriate to a fragmented society full of paranoid men with inferiority complexes. Perhaps the industry could be subjected to a fine say R1m per death caused by booze. That might concentrate their minds. The proceeds could be spent on undoing some of the damage wrought by the industry. Most contact crime occurs in poor, under-educated areas, where unemployment is rife and families dysfunctional. Repairing social disadvantage is a job that will take decades unless it becomes a national priority. What do we do about professional violence, as practiced by hijackers, heist gangs and other Mafiosi? These guys call for professional hunters. Now a bit of good news. Some 87 crime bosses have been apprehended and will soon stand trial. There have been a number of heist gang arrests. Thanks to the partnership between government and business through Business Against Crime, closed circuit television has its beady eye over high-crime and even high-accident zones. Many a bust has been effected through this expanding system. Special commercial crime courts have been set up in most the major cities. Cases are handled more quickly and 80% result in convictions. Police stations are still under-resourced and a shocking lack of accountability still exists. BAC has enlisted the aid of a number of training companies to develop police manpower. The motor industry has been reluctant to introduce micro-dot technology because the more cars that are hijacked and stolen, the more they sell. This week Toyota and Nissan broke ranks by applying micro dots to their vehicles. The pressure on the others to follow suit will be enormous. Don't buy a new car that hasn't got micro-dots. The short-term insurance industry has long been passive. It merely adjusts premiums for rising risk. The Second Hand goods Act will soon be promulgated. That will make it compulsory for dealers in non-ferrous metals to register and to explain the source of all the metal they buy. It will oblige pawn shops and others, who might deal in stolen hi-fis and TVs, to be registered and keep a record of the source of any goods they buy. Last year BAC persuaded the cellphone distributors and the networks to co-operate with the police in blacklisting stolen cellphones. It has been partially successful. A few crime bosses have found software to counter the measure but their days are numbered. The decline of faith may be a factor in crime – but many countries are more godless than we and have a tenth of the crime rate. It seems that post Christian societies, particularly in Europe, have not jettisoned a cornerstone of the old faith to do unto others as you would be done by. |
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