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Cape Town has twice the murder rate of Johannesburg

Cape Town, danger lurks here... — Cape Town, danger lurks here…

According to an analysis of the latest crime stats by the Istitute for Security Studies, the murder rate in Cape Town is almost twice as high as that of Johannesburg.

Lizette Lancaster, a researcher at the Institute, writes: “Between April 2011 and March 2012, police recorded more murders in Cape Town than in Johannesburg and Pretoria combined. This means that, taking population into account, Cape Town residents are 1,8 times more likely to be murdered than Johannesburg residents. Yet this information is potentially misleading because the likelihood of being a crime victim depends in large part on race, gender, age, economic profile and where in a city a person lives.”

For example, almost two-thirds of the Cape Town murders took place in just ten of the 60 police station precincts in the city, according to an analysis of crime hotspots by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). For years, the Coloured area of Mitchells Plain has experienced the highest violence and property crime rates in the country.

Black areas in Cape Town show ‘abnormally high murder rates’

Although surpassed by Coloured (mixed-race) areas regarding general violent crime, black townships in Cape Town showed the highest murder rates. According to Lizette Lancaster, “Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Harare remain the most murderous in the peninsula, according to an analysis that takes population size into account. These areas have experienced abnormally high murder rates for more than a decade.”

Similarly, a countrywide analysis of police precinct statistics suggests that income levels matter. Residents in low-income areas are far more likely to be murdered than their middle- and high-income counterparts. Half of South Africa’s murders occurred in only 13% of police precincts (or in 143 out of 1 127).

The focus tends to fall on South Africa’s national murder rate, which is almost five times higher than the global average of 6,9 murders per 100 000 people. However, about 13% of police precincts in South Africa had lower murder rates than this, including affluent areas such as Brooklyn (Pretoria), Garsfontein (Pretoria), Camps Bay, Claremont, Rondebosch (Cape Town), Edenvale and Linden (Gauteng). Over 10% of South African policing precincts – more than 115 stations – experienced no murders, while three in four murders occurred in just a quarter of the country’s police precincts. Suburbs like Sandton, Parkview (Johannesburg), Durban North, Table View and Woodstock (Cape Town) had a murder rate of just under 10 per 100 000 people.

Although murder is often used as the main indicator to support arguments that South Africa is a violent country, it makes up only 2,5% of all violent crime. While there were 16 259 murders in 2012/13, over 600 000 other violent crimes were also reported to the police, including attempted murder, rape, robbery and assault.

Most murder victims are young black men

A vast majority of the murders that take place daily do not make the news. They happen in areas where crime and violence are the norm, and where residents already feel marginalised and forgotten. The majority of murders are neither premeditated nor committed as part of a crime, but occur when an argument leads to physical assault. Research shows that most victims are killed by acquaintances, friends or family members during disputes fuelled by alcohol or drug abuse.

Victimisation surveys, police docket surveys and mortuary surveillance studies reveal that most South African murder victims are young black men. These studies also reveal that most murdered women are killed by their intimate partners, and that men are six times more likely to be killed than women. However, violence affects all South Africans, and the resultant trauma has lasting physical, emotional and often financial consequences.

Read Lizette Lancaster’s entire report here.

Policeman shot dead on patrol in black township Nyanga

Nyanga, one of the famous black townships in Cape Town

A policeman was shot dead and another was wounded while on patrol in Nyanga, Western Cape police said on Tuesday.

The policeman was shot in the head by two men he and a partner stopped to search on Monday night, said Captain Frederick van Wyk. He died later in hospital.

The other policeman was wounded in the hand and shoulder in an exchange of fire with the two gunmen, who shot at them while they were getting out of their police car at the corner of Zwelitsha and Hlathe roads.

Two members of the public were also wounded in the crossfire and were taken to hospital, said Van Wyk.

“Several shots were fired and SA Police Service members returned fire as the suspects fled the scene on foot,” he said.

The men stole a service pistol from one of the policemen before fleeing.

An officer was shot in the head and died later in hospital.

No arrests had been made.

“This attack on police officers will not be tolerated and every endeavour will be made to bring those responsible to book,” Van Wyk said. – Sapa

Black area has highest crime rate in Western Cape

The most likely place to be murdered in the Western Cape is the black township of Nyanga, especially over a weekend and after dark, provincial community safety MEC Dan Plato said on Wednesday.

The township, situated near the Cape Town International Airport, recorded the highest number of reported murders last year, based on forensic pathology data, he said.

Plato was speaking at the release of the first “Shadow Crime Report”, which used mortuary statistics — from 2008 to 2012 — to give detailed information on provincial crime, in addition to the police’s annual crime statistics.

The report revealed that 10 police stations, all in Cape Town, contributed to just under half of the province’s 2290 reported murders.

These were Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Harare, Gugulethu, Kraaifontein, Delft, Mitchell’s Plain, Philippi East, Bishop Lavis and Mfuleni.

A typical murder victim was most likely to have been stabbed; to have drank alcohol beforehand; and to be a black man aged between 18 and 35.

The report revealed that 87 percent of murder victims were men. Half of those murdered were stabbed, a quarter were shot, and about 17 percent died of severe assault or blunt trauma.

Seventy percent of those killed tested positive for alcohol.

In areas known for gang violence, the number of people killed by gunshots was significantly higher than the provincial norm of 26 percent.

About 85 percent of murders reported to the Belhar police station were gunshot-related.

Steenberg, Bishop Lavis and Elsie’s River were the next highest.

Plato said the purpose of the report was not to criticise police, but to move away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to crime.

The department planned to release a report every six months, and use the information to create “localised responses” to specific community crime trends. – Sapa

Terror of the gay dwarfish African incubus

by Dan Roodt

To most people outside South Africa in developed countries, our life here must seem bizarre. After all, nowhere in Europe or the United States would you drive your children to school and see that the country’s largest newspaper, the Daily Sun, has got “Terror of the gay Tokoloshe” as its frontpage story for the day.

Probably you do not even know what a Tokoloshe is. Ever since I was a child I was intrigued to see that most black people in South Africa, especially women, place their beds on bricks. Apparently if one’s bed is high enough, the Tokoloshe cannot reach you while you are sleeping. So from my earliest years as I became aware of the peculiar differences between blacks and whites, I was brought under the impression that the Tokoloshe played an important role in the lives of blacks.

More black people in South Africa use so-called “traditional medicine” than the Western kind. The government has even institutionalised witchdoctors which are now called “traditional healers” or simply “healers”. At one point I read somewhere that one might also claim from health insurance for visiting a healer who will give you a concoction called “muti” that might contain all kinds of bizarre ingredients. In the northern parts of the country, there is even traffic in human body parts for making “strong muti”.

Being Africans of a slightly different kind, we Afrikaners jocularly refer to the more regular Eurocentric medicine that we take as “muti” too, especially to children. “Come on, drink your muti,” one would tell one’s son or daughter, referring to cough mixture or a tablet made by some branded pharmaceutical company.

Sometimes we Afrikaners call our children “Tokolos” as a term of endearment. Otherwise, we often joke about the Tokoloshe, saying things like: “The Tokoloshe is going to catch you.” But of course, unlike black Africans, we lack any real belief in his existence. To us he is merely a mythological creature like Zeus or Spiderman.

Wikipedia has a few lines on the Tokoloshe, but it mostly omits his sexual proclivities. From what I remember, the Tokoloshe especially preys on single women as they are more likely to be amenable to his advances, especially in dreams. It is also through one’s dreams that the ancestors communicate to the living. Normally, witchdoctors or sangomas or nyangas as they are also called, are “called” by an ancestor to their profession.

I once heard a story of an African investment banker in Johannesburg being called to become a witchdoctor. He went missing for six weeks and arrived back at the bank with an animal bladder on his head. Afterwards there was some discussion as to whether he could discuss corporate finance with clients while wearing the bladder, which he was not allowed to take off.

The Daily Sun’s story has a charm of its own and is in a way politically correct. No doubt it will speak to people for whom gay rights are a burning issue as even the little African incubus may be gay, it seems. Considering that there is currently a whole hullabaloo in the United States about the Republican senatorial candidate’s petite phrase about “legitimate rape”, “the terror of the gay tokoloshe” brings a whole new dimension to discussions of rape.

According to the Daily Sun’s report, Mr. Isaac Malope (51) has already spent R200 000 (about $25 000) on muti to defend himself against a gay Tokoloshe who comes to rape him every night while he is asleep next to his wife Constance Mazibuko (43).

Isaac Malope told the Daily Sun’s reporter, Alex Nkosi: “Every night he comes between me and my wife and rapes me over and over. When he leaves, I no longer have energy for my wife and even if I try to get an erection, nothing happens.

The only time when I manage to get an erection is if I fast for seven days and ask God for it. But it only lasts for a day and then it is back to hell. I have been to many different sangomas but they have failed to solve the problem.”

Mr. Malope has even travelled from South Africa to Nigeria to consult a well-known prophet there, to no avail.

The couple are now asking the Daily Sun’s readers for help, giving the following number in Pretoria to dial: 012 424 6251.