Police once again released the quarterly crime statistics this week, painting an almost despondent picture of a nation besieged no end by criminals who seem to be running amok everywhere you care to look.
Crime, and rampant crime at that, has been the story of our lives so much that it is difficult to believe there is a single South African, or anyone else for that matter, who has never been a victim one way or the other of crime.
If we have not been victims ourselves, chances are that we know someone who has been. It has been that bad.
But the issue the nation should be preoccupied with is how do we turn the proverbial corner for good and bring the scourge of crime to acceptable levels?
We say acceptable levels because, like death and taxes, crime will always be there.
So, as the minister released the tallied numbers, the usual games in the media and public debates were on the crime hotspots and tags such as “murder capitals”, “rape capitals”, and so on that serve little purpose than to bestow on the country dubious distinctions such as “the crime capital of the world”.
We have worn these hats uncomfortably for much of our democratic years, with no doubt some taking glee in labelling us as such if only to prove that Africans can hardly run a bath, let alone a sophisticated modern state.
We know from where these types of depraved, morally bankrupt sentiments come, but it is high time we held those given the responsibility for the safety and security of the citizenry accountable.
We cannot keep living in the hope that someday it will get better.
Whenever the stats are released, some unfortunate place would bear the label of “murder capital”, with the saving grace usually being the marginal, almost negligible improvements that make no impact on the real problem. We keep these morbid scores; the question is what is being done about it.
Our interest and focus should have long shifted from which policing district holds such a ludicrous honour to what we are doing, not only in matters of policing, to help arrest the situation and begin to render such places where murderers lurk safer.
It’s time we read in that more of a cry for help than just a warning that this is a place to avoid at all costs, for there are people living there who obviously bear the brunt of the relentless murder industry in their midst.
What are those with power and the mandate to do something about these crime capitals to improve the lot of those inadvertently waiting their turn to be the next murder, rape and robbery statistic there?
We can’t continue on the path that has yielded little desirable results and yet hope things will improve. What is the wisdom in that?
The picture, of course, is not all bleak.
There are pockets of excellence we should do well to multiply by having the hotspots, different as areas may be, to learn and adapt to their unique situation.
Policing is a national competency that should never work in silos but cross-pollinate with winning ideas.
Here’s to hoping the next crime statistics give us something more positive.
