VZCZCXRO7352
PP RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHSA #2155/01 2951624
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 221624Z OCT 09
FM AMEMBASSY PRETORIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9943
INFO RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY COLLECTIVE
RUEHTN/AMCONSUL CAPE TOWN 7253
RUEHDU/AMCONSUL DURBAN 1332
RUEHJO/AMCONSUL JOHANNESBURG 9614

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PRETORIA 002155 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL SF
SUBJECT: SOUTH AFRICA: NGO'S CONSIDER CYCLE OF CRIME AND 
HOW TO BREAK IT 
 
REF: PRETORIA 2037 
 
PRETORIA 00002155  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
 
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Summary 
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¶1.  The cycle of crime plaguing South Africa has been 
documented by two recent surveys of young people -- showing 
they are victimized at even higher rates than adults 
(reftel), and this can lead to their own violent behavior. 
Looking for ways to break the cycle, the surveys identified 
factors related to schooling, family, community, and peers 
which enable some respondents to refrain from crime and 
transcend their violent upbringings.  Progressive prevention 
strategies have been built into in new SAG legislation, and 
the SAG has funded NGO community initiatives to eliminate 
root causes of crime.  Civil society groups worry, however, 
that the public outcry over crime has put pressure on the SAG 
to adopt a hard-line posture of heavy-handed law enforcement, 
rather than one promoting long-term social change.  End 
Summary. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
Links From Victimization to Perpetration 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  The notion of a cycle of crime, in which early exposure 
leads to later offending, is corroborated by the 2008 Youth 
Lifestyle Survey conducted by the Center for Justice and 
Crime Prevention (CJCP).  The survey documents the high rates 
at which 12 to 22-year-old South Africans are victims of 
violence and crime (reftel), and it demonstrates how such 
victimization in turn correlates to anti-social behavior. 
The figures below show clear associations between youths' 
experiences of crime and their own proclivities to violent 
behaviors: higher percentages of respondents who had 
themselves suffered crime now carried weapons, engaged in 
physical fighting, or threatened others with weapons. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
Correlation: Violent Experiences to Violent Behaviors 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
                   Percent who had (in prior year): 
                   ----------------------------------- 
                                           Threatened 
                   Carried    Physically   / hurt s.o. 
                   a weapon   in a fight   with weapon 
                   --------   ----------   ----------- 
Family violence 
- Yes                  11.6         44.3         5.9 
- No                    4.4         26.8         1.4 
 
Community violence 
- Yes                   7.5         40.6         2.9 
- No                    2.9         16.7         0.8 
 
Ever been assaulted 
- Yes                  13.2         75.8         6.8 
- No                   13.9         20.8         1.1 
 
Ever been robbed 
- Yes                  12.5         49.1         6.2 
- No                    4.4         26.4         1.4 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
Source: CJCP National Youth Lifestyle Survey 2008 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
 
--------------------------------------- 
Resiliency: Overcoming One's Upbringing 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  In a companion study seeking ways to disrupt cycles of 
crime, CJCP probed why youth respond differently to common 
difficult backgrounds, some succumbing to criminality while 
others resist.  CJCP's survey of Youth Resiliency to Crime 
compared two sets of respondents: an "offender" group of 395 
young persons (aged 12-25) incarcerated for criminal 
offences, plus 233 of their parents /caregivers and 297 of 
their siblings; versus a "non-offender" group of 604 youths 
who had not committed crimes, plus their caregivers and 
Qwho had not committed crimes, plus their caregivers and 
siblings, drawn for comparison from the same neighborhoods as 
the offenders.  The survey sought so-called "resilience 
factors" which statistically are most predictive of youths' 
ability to transcend even the most crime-prone contexts. 
 
¶4.  The most potent forces keeping youth out of trouble with 
the law were schooling, non-violence in the family and 
 
PRETORIA 00002155  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
community, peer behavior, and abstinence from alcohol and 
drugs.  High school graduates, for example, were six times 
more likely to steer clear of committing crime than their 
non-graduate peers, and that multiple increased to 31 times 
among those who worked hard to get good grades.  Respondents 
from homes where disputes were settled non-violently were 
seven times more likely to refrain from crime, and where 
punishment at home was not physical they were twice as likely 
to do so.  Youths who had never themselves been victims of 
crime were six times more likely to behave lawfully, the same 
multiple as those whose best friends had never been arrested. 
 Young people who did not consume alcohol or drugs were four 
times more likely to resist other forms of crime.  Females 
were 15 times more likely to stay out of trouble, in part 
because males are less adherent to resilience factors like 
schooling and more susceptible to risk factors like 
delinquent friends. 
 
-------------------------------------- 
SAG Policy: Prevention vs. Enforcement 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  Introducing the CJCP study at its September 29 launch, 
prominent youth rights advocate Dr. Ann Skelton noted that 
the resilience factors were striking in their simplicity but 
deceptively difficult to promote in practice.  CJCP's 
findings were common-sensical and "in a sense, obvious": 
violence breeds violence, as can corporal punishment in lieu 
of reasoning; non-violent law-abiding role models are vital; 
and school and family are key socializing contexts (evidenced 
by the spike in crime at age 18 when youths finish school and 
leave home).  Prevention paradigms had been enshrined in 
recent SAG laws, like the Child Justice Act (aiming for 
rehabilitation over punishment of young offenders) and the 
Children's Act (allowing for family interventions by social 
workers).  Dr. Skelton worried, however, that the SAG was 
rushing to address symptoms of crime -- through metal 
detectors, barbed-wire fences, and police on campus to ensure 
school safety -- without parallel "deeper thinking" on its 
underlying drivers. 
 
¶6.  In a September 25 meeting, CJCP Executive Director 
Patrick Burton said the Resiliency Survey underscored the 
limits of policing alone, and of a SAG trend toward 
heavy-handed law enforcement.  Enlightened SAG policymakers 
were beginning to shift thinking from a reactive to a 
proactive footing, funding preventative social work alongside 
police repressive force -- but this was an uphill argument in 
the face of mounting political pressure to wage war on crime. 
 The SAG's first National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) 
drafted in 1996 under Nelson Mandela was oriented to 
prevention and alleviating crime's root causes, said Burton, 
but this approach was scrapped in the Mbeki administration 
under Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi's crackdown on crime. 
 In conjunction with President Zuma's recent endorsement of 
expanded police authorities, the name change of the 
Department of Safety and Security to the Department of Police 
reflects the ascendancy of a harder line approach.  Voices 
like that of the Western Cape's provincial Police 
Commissioner Mzwandile Petros, whom Burton said "objects to 
having it all distilled down to statistics," were at risk of 
being drowned out by a growing emphasis on enforcement. 
 
----------------------------------- 
NGO Initiatives in Crime Prevention 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  In meetings with Cape Town NGOs and academics, poloff 
Q7.  In meetings with Cape Town NGOs and academics, poloff 
learned of a range of local interventions aimed to curb 
violence and crime.  As an example, the Department of Social 
Development has compensated for its acute shortage of 
government social workers by outsourcing some of its violence 
prevention commitments under the new Children's Act to a 
group known as RAPCAN (for Resources Aimed at the Prevention 
of Child Abuse and Neglect).  At communities' invitation, 
RAPCAN leads workshops addressing historical traumas absorbed 
over decades of apartheid and beyond, teaching empathy and 
the channeling of rage, and confronting and changing male 
attitudes toward violence.  In high schools RAPCAN runs 
seminars on coping skills as alternatives to violence, and in 
homes they teach programs in parenting.  (Note: Executive 
Director Christina Nomdo extended an open invitation to 
emboffs discreetly to observe such a community dialogue. End 
Note.)  RAPCAN cites the success story of the New World 
Foundation, a center operating since 1980 in the Cape's once 
gang-ridden Lavender Hill, which overcame local gangsterism 
through community dialogue. 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
PRETORIA 00002155  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
COMMENT: Quick Fix vs. Long Haul 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  South Africa's extraordinarily high rates of violence and 
crime demand both an urgent step-up in policing and long-term 
prevention strategies.  The former is certainly needed to 
overcome the prevailing impunity enjoyed by illegal actors, 
and its potential for quantifiable results is appealing to 
politicians who wish to be seen to be fighting crime, but it 
can be superficial in addressing symptoms, rather than the 
root causes of crime and violence.  By contrast, preventative 
interventions are long and hard -- indirect but fundamental, 
reshaping social and cultural dynamics and disrupting 
intergenerational patterns through extensive counseling work 
in communities, schools, and even individual homes.  These 
interventions do not bear fruit in the five years of a single 
administration.  It is encouraging to hear that the SAG is 
funding NGO interventions for the long term, in accordance 
with Mandela's 1996 vision -- but judging by recent headlines 
of "shoot to kill" policies, we remain concerned that the 
Zuma administration of 2009 may tilt toward the quick fix. 
End Comment. 
GIPS