OpenUCT :: Browsing by Subject "Criminology"

Browsing by Subject "Criminology"

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Open Access
Battered women: self-defence and provocation
(1993) Oswell, Bennita-Simone; Leeman
The act of 'being battered' is within the realm of experience of many women and may involve not only actual physical assault but also psychologically debilitating practices, all of which occur in a society which seems to be unable to realise the extent of the problem. 'Wife beating' has always been deemed to be a personal, family problem, to be solved by the wife to the best of her abilities - it is seen as an internal family issue, not the business of neighbours or outsiders and certainly not within the purview of the police or the law. The view therefore held by friends, neighbours and the police has generally been that these women 'encourage, elicit and enjoy this type of abuse'.
Open Access
Contested governance: police and gang interactions
(2017) Kinnes, Irvin; Shearing, Clifford D; Van der Spuy, Elrena
Gangs in Cape Town have long been associated with high levels of violence and police efforts on the Cape Flats, while state agencies have not yet been able to bring any significant relief to the affected communities or growing gang structures. It seems the conventional approaches need reconceptualization. This thesis explores a nodal governance approach to the forms and consequences associated with the policing of gangs by police. Developments in governance theory has brought new insights for our understanding of how state and non-state actors relate in and across different networks, and especially within the security governance networks. However, such research has failed to consider how gangs and police interact and regulate each other through their own governance and conflict with one another. In attempts by the police to govern gangs (and by extension the community), a state of contested governance arises between gangs and police nodes of power. This thesis argues that contrary to previous understandings, the organised gangs of Cape Town regulate and impact the way the police police gangs, which in turn affects the way gangs police themselves, and goes on to explore these interactions.
Open Access
Criminal strategies of competing protagonists in the 'development' of Crossroads 1990-9: The Transition from Apartheid "oilspot" to democratic civil society
(2001) Greenwell, Anne W; Schärf, Wilfried
The history of Old Crossroads started in 1975 when indigent families from the Eastern Cape, began arriving in search of work in the Cape Town area of the Western Cape. They erected their shack/homes in the bush areas bordering the Nyanga township that is located twenty-two kilometres out of Cape Town near the N2highway and across it the airport. As squatters they struggled for survival and the right to remain, under the leadership of a 'traditional' rural type Headman called Johnson Ngxobongwana, who negotiated on their behalf with the regional and local government authorities. A precarious and volatile balance of power between these and the informal-settlement leadership often resulting in conflict ensued and, it is claimed, had prevented socio-economic development of the area. During a spell in prison on corruption charges Ngxobongwana had been turned from his "struggle" leadership adversary role to be a client/puppet of the apartheid government authorities by cooperating with them in opposing the lNC and its youth structures known as the"comrades". This had resulted in a major outbreak of violence led by his "witdoeke"vigilante group of older local 'traditional' leaders and their followers backed by the local government authorities and supported by government security forces attacking the residents of KTC, burning their homes and laying the area to waste on the pretext of clearing out the "comrades". Since then there has been ongoing low-intensity conflict, criminal activity and intimidation often erupting into sporadic violence in the Old Crossroads urban and informal-settlements. The period of history from 1976-1986 is comprehensively covered by Josette Cole in her book on "Crossroads" (1987). This dissertation will attempt to take up the story from there but the main focus of the research will be on the years between 1990-1999.During this period the writer/researcher has been active, initially as a 'repression' monitor with the Black Sash Monitoring Group until it closed down in 1994, and from 1995-1999, as a 'peace' monitor with UMAC (Urban Monitoring Awareness Committee). Through her involvement with both these Human Rights NGOs (nongovernment organizations) she has been able, most particularly in Old Crossroads, to meet and interact with representatives of the various constituencies there including the security forces and local government authorities. She has kept a journal throughout which has become a Research Diary reflecting the important events, the interpersonal, as well as the more formal group meetings that occurred. It was only in1996 that the possibility of a dissertation took root and she began to conduct more formal semi-structured open-ended interviews with the key role-players which were electronically recorded.
Open Access
Critical criminology in South Africa : developing paradigms and theoretical models
(1993) Rossouw, Gideon
The unmasking of apartheid and the unmasking of the state run together in an analysis of the legacy of social engineering. The integration of macro and micro levels of analysis offer a complex challenge to social theorists, and this in conjunction with the demands of analysing a racially divided society undergoing extreme forms of crisis and change, require a sophisticated· level of theorizing which is informed by the practical experiences which constitute the social relations of the society. The perspectives that can be offered in the fields of crime, crime control and the social consequences of economic and social interaction cannot be complete without considering the political framework within which the competing demands for power, influence and wealth are taking place. These structures have undergone radical ideological transformations in the recent past, which have been linked to the radical consequences of the end of the ·cold War' and the apparent era of demilitarising international relations between powerful states. The issues which will cloud the judgements made in the field of Criminology are linked to these broader matters of international relations, and gee-political issues, because the political struggle in South Africa has been utilized in terms of this debate, and the achievement of the democratic demands has become foreseeable and realistic because of changes taking place at international level.
Open Access
Engaging with perpetrators of intimate partner violence : an exploration of inter-agency collaboration in the Western Cape
(2011) Padayachee, Venessa Claudette Thigesharee; Van de Spuy, E
The prevalence of violence between intimate partners in South Africa is widely acknowledged. Social and legal reforms have attempted to address the needs of victims of intimate partner violence. This study drew on social learning theory to explicate the causative factors involved in intimate partner violence. According to international best practices, treatment interventions for batterers are based on psycho-educational and cognitive behavioural principles and provided in community-based group settings. Coordinated community responses are likely to provide favourable outcomes for batterer intervention and the prevention of intimate partner violence. Key features of batterer intervention programmes and issues that affect their efficacy are outlined.
Open Access
Glancing the city : a story of six refugees in Cape Town.
(2011) Armstrong, Adam; Berg, Julie
South African spaces are socially and politically important. Historically this is due to Apartheid's brutal exclusion. More recently, this can be attributed to the conscious building of the "new South Africa? after 1994. Concurrently, many foreign Africans come into South African spaces, claiming them and creating lives with varying degrees of safety and success. This claiming and 'invading' of local spaces by foreigners leads to changes for both foreigners and locals. A spatial lens is used to dissect the nuanced community and spatially mediated identities of refugees in Cape Town. Using space allows one to explain xenophobia more broadly. This thesis draws on ethnographic data gathered over 18 months in Muizenberg and Retreat, to make numerous theoretical claims about the nature of personal and national identity, community and the making of social space.
Open Access
Global crime governance off the eastern Africa littoral: does the response to piracy in the Western Indian Ocean provide a model?
(2021) Bruwer, Carina; van der Spuy, Elrena; Shaw, Mark
The transnational character of contemporary organized crime has resulted in cooperative efforts to address crimes which pose a mutual threat to multiple entities across the globe. But are such collective efforts achieving their aims? One such partnership, or group of partnerships, which has, is the global response to Somali piracy in the Western Indian Ocean off eastern Africa. While it has not eradicated piracy or the conditions giving rise thereto, it has effectively contained attacks. This achievement, and the public-private partnerships which gave effect to these efforts, is unprecedented for a response to transnational organized crime at sea. This has sparked debate regarding the response's utility for other transnational organized crimes which continue to plague the world's oceans. Although counter-piracy has been the object of much research due to its international nature, cooperative responses to other forms of transnational organized crime off the eastern Africa littoral have been neglected. In particular, the utility of counter-piracy for these other organized crimes is under-examined. This thesis therefore aims to present evidence to answer the research question: does the global governance response to Somali piracy provide a model for responding to other forms of transnational organized crime in the Western Indian Ocean? The research straddles criminology and law and is grounded in the theoretical frameworks of global governance, organized crime and maritime security. Research data was generated through a literature review, complimented by expert interviews and participant observation. This thesis uses the case studies of heroin and ivory trafficking in the Western Indian Ocean to consider comparative lessons from counter-piracy. It considers each crime's modus operandi, applicable international legal frameworks, impact, responding actors and existing and potential responses. It does so in order to illuminate the conditions under which global governance efforts against transnational organized crime at sea are likely to emerge and achieve success. The responses to piracy, heroin and ivory trafficking are considered at the hand of five paradigms, originally applied to counter-piracy responses by Prof. Christian Bueger. Each paradigm problematizes different aspects of each crime and discusses the resulting responses. The paradigms are categorized as the security, legal, economic, development and humanitarian paradigms. The findings suggest that global crime governance efforts are perhaps more at home at sea than on land and that different crimes mobilize responding actors to enter the maritime domain for different reasons. In addition to threatening national interests, states and other entities responding to maritime crimes are equally influenced by other factors, including corruption, modus operandi, strategic interests, international legal frameworks and human rights concerns. These factors also influence their chosen responses. Significantly, the research found that the private actors integral to counter-piracy are absent in the response to heroin and ivory trafficking, leaving a lacuna which, if not filled, will continue to facilitate the use of the oceans for illicit means. It is concluded that although counter-piracy holds many valuable lessons for global crime governance at sea, a response mimicking counter-piracy is unlikely to form in efforts to counter other forms of transnational organized crimes in the Western Indian Ocean.
Open Access
Greed or grievance : why is South African youth crime so violent in nature? : First world taste on a third world budget or simply marginalised from centre-stage?
(2005) Boda, Siham; Schärf, Wilfried
How can criminological theory assist in making sense of the youth subcultures that are involved in criminal activity of a violent nature in the contemporary South African context? - T.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-219).
Open Access
The impact of liquor on the working class (with particular focus on the Western Cape) : the implications of the structure of the liquor industry and the role of the state in this regard
(1984) Schärf, Wilfried
This thesis examines the role liquor has played in shaping both the rural and the urban 'Coloured' working class in the Western Cape. The dramatic events during the 1976 Soweto uprisings and the subsequent blatant and dramatic restructuring conveniently illustrate the complex interplay between the interests of liquor capital, the State, and the urban Black workforce. Furthermore, it exposed the blatancy with which liquor consumption was manipulated by the State to reproduce the work-force to the needs of capital in general. The Decriminalisation of shebeens, and the withdrawal of the State from overt liquor distribution, is seen as an attempt at co-optive strategies by which class stratification among urban Blacks is accelerated. A historical examination of the relationship between primary liquor capital (the wine farmers) and the State creates the context within which the contemporary role of liquor is explored. The power and influence of primary liquor capital has resulted in perennial over-production which of necessity had to be distributed through illicit channels. By a process of selective enforcement of liquor laws, the State has colluded with liquor capital to enable continued accumulation to take place. At the same time, this process co-opts the illicit distributors, the shebeeners of the Cape Flats, into an uneasy alliance in terms of which they assist in controlling the urban working class. In the rural context, the tot system forms part of coercive management, by which the agricultural labour force is kept underdeveloped, dependent, and both spatially and occupationally immobile. The processes of informal criminalisation and recriminalisation augment the control over the labour force achieved by the institutionalised administration of liquor.
Open Access
The penal system of colonial Natal : from British roots to racially defined punishment
(1984) Pete, Steve; Van Zyl Smit, Dirk
This thesis does not claim to be a complete penal history of the colony of Natal. Rather it investigates selected themes which characterized Natal's penal system during the period 1842 to 1910. It attempts thus to reveal both the similarity of that system to the penal systems of the advanced capitalist states as well as its essentially unique character. The continuities between penal practice in Natal and elsewhere in the capitalist world do not seem difficult to explain; Natal was after all a colonial possession of the world's oldest and most advanced capitalist state. With the annexation of Natal to the British Empire in 1842, and the introduction of the British administration in 1845, the colony became part of a single expanding world capitalist economy. The legal and administrative institutions which were set up to govern and regulate this new market in the interests of the Empire, were, modelled upon British institutions. These institutions had developed with, and formed an integral part of the system of industrial capitalism. The officials and administrators sent out from "home" to operate these new institutions were likewise ideological products of the most industrialised and developed capitalist country in the world. Thus the penal system imported into Natal in the middle of the nineteenth century, and all the ideological baggage which came with that system, had its roots in the metropolitan country, where the punishment of imprisonment had arisen with the development of capitalism, and was linked thereto. Any study of the penal system of Natal thus cannot ignore the origins of imprisonment as a form of punishment, and the reasons for its development along with the rise of capitalism in Europe. It would be a mistake, however, simply to point to the similarity of the prisons of Natal to prisons in the mother country. While Natal's economy was certainly integrated, as a peripheral sector, with a single world capitalist economy, it could certainly not be described as capitalist in nature. The prison in Europe had emerged as a response to large scale industrialisation and the rapid expansion of capitalist relations of production. Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, Natal had no industries worth speaking of. In addition the white colonists were confronted by a large indigenous population, which fiercely and successfully resisted being drawn into wage labour for the white man, which in effect meant subjection to capitalist relations of production. Natal's penal system must thus be seen in the context of the colonial situation. To a large extent the role of the prison in Natal and the ideologies of punishment which developed in the colony over the years, were a response to specific local conditions. It is this fact that makes the penal system of Natal unique. This thesis is thus concerned with both continuity and originality; the articulation of the penal theories and assumptions of an industrialised metropolitan political economy, with a rural colonial political economy.
Open Access
Private prisons : international experiences and South African prospects
(2000) Berg, Julie; Van Zyl Smit, Dirk
Bibliography: leaves 165-170.
Open Access
Protecting our wildlife for life: a discussion on how we have failed to protect our rhino populations in the past and what our future options really are
(1998) Peters, Justine; Scarf, W
The poaching of the rhino of southern Africa is not a new debate. In fact, it has been a key area of environmental concern for a number of years. Today, it falls under the rubric of ecological criminology which shall be addressed in this dissertation. I intend to deal with the impact poaching and the illegal trade has had on this endangered species and, in addition, to give an overview of the current measures of the criminal justice system in force to combat it. I shall discuss the international perspective and propose some solutions to prevent the further elimination of the species. Approximately 350 million wild animals and plants are traded each year world-wide, estimated to be worth US $20 billion per year. It is argued that up to a quarter of this trade may be illegal .and, thus after drugs and weapons it is the third most significant trade internationally. This illegal activity continues despite the operation of an international convention aimed to prevent it, the Convention on International Trade in · Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, (CITES). I shall address many of the attributes of CITES, but also consider its numerous flaws which have failed to protect · the rhino adequately.
Open Access
Regulation, conflict and violence in the South African minibus-taxi industry : observations from the Western Cape
(2002) Jefthas, Diane; Van der Spuy, Elrena
This research attempts to explore the complexities of the issues underlying the instability in the South African minibus-taxi industry. Presented in this dissertation is a detailed account of the growth and development of the industry and the conflict and violence that has plagued it since the late 1980s. A review of the apartheid government's attempts to address the problems in the taxi industry, is followed by an examination of the democratic government's strategies to bring about the industry's stability through transformation, formalisation and regulation. Of particular interest is the nature of the relationships that exist both within the taxi industry and between the industry and government, more specifically, law enforcement agencies. The challenges facing future regulation of the industry are then highlighted.
Open Access
Restorative justice : a Marxist analysis
(2005) Koen, Raymond Anthony; Van Zyl Smit, Dirk
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 468-504).
Open Access
Rites of passage as the basis of programme development for young people at risk in South Africa
(1998) Van Eden, Karen; Schärf, Wilfried
In traditional indigenous communities, rites of passage provide a binding and supportive function which facilitates the transition of young people from childhood to adulthood. However, in contemporary western society transition rites have largely been forgotten or neglected and this loss has resulted in a hunger for initiation which adolescents often attempt to satisfy by using means which are socially unacceptable. This study attempts to understand the mechanisms which lead adolescents into socially unacceptable behaviour by exploring the potential for using the notion of de-labelling as the basis of intercepting and transforming juvenile deviance. As such, rites of passage are explored from the perspectives of a range of social scientific theories in order to assess the value in these processes tor young people at risk in South Africa. The central findings of this study suggest that it is possible to reinstate rites of passage in the form of a de-labelling programme, but that there is a need to go beyond an isolated programme by providing more systemic containment of young people in the form of community support and mentoring.
Open Access
Sentencing reforms in a postcolonial society: a call for the rationalisation of sentencing discretion in Nigeria, drawing on South Africa and England
(2015) Badejogbin, Oluwatoyin Akinwande; De Vos, Wouter; Phelps, Kelly
This thesis investigates measures to ensure that sentencers introduce proportionality to sentencing and refrain from imposing penalties that infringe constitutional rights. The investigation involves two stages of analysis. First, the thesis examines the socio-historical context in which the practice of punishment evolved in England, South Africa and Nigeria in order to unveil how evolving concepts about punishment regulate or fail to regulate penal severity. Secondly, the thesis examined the normative basis of sentencing in South Africa and Nigeria, both of which are constitutional democracies and former English colonies. The analysis leads to two critical findings. First, Nigeria lacks the rich tapestry of constitutional jurisprudence that South African Courts have developed around punishment. Secondly, neither South Africa nor Nigeria has a structured system for rationalising sentencing discretion, with the result that sentencing can lead to widely disparate and disproportionate outcomes in both countries. The thesis thus proposes that Nigeria adopts constitutional provisions that restrain penal severity, and that it harmonise its pluralistic penal system, scrutinise statutory penalties in the light of constitutional norms, and, drawing on practices in England, develop guidelines that enhance proportionality and parsimony in sentencing.
Open Access
South African criminology's aetiological crisis: reflections on a century of murder
(University of Cape Town, 2020) Kriegler, Anine; Van der Spuy, Elrena; Smythe, Dee
South African criminology's structural aetiology is in crisis. This dissertation offers a novel account of the nature, origin, severity, implications, and possibilities of that crisis. It suggests that, rather than a normative problem, it should be understood as an empirical one, related to the challenge of crime prevalence measurement. The question of crime prevalence patterns and trends has mistakenly been treated as trivial. This dissertation conducts meta-theoretical and historical analyses to reveal a fundamental criminological quandary: making defensible and testable claims about aggregate crime prevalence patterns and trends is at once both indispensable and impossible. This dilemma is in some respects inherent to the task of primary criminology, but its origin and manifestation are also uniquely crippling and revealing in the South African context. The aetiological crisis is more severe, more fundamental, and more complex than previously thought. In demonstration of this, this dissertation seeks to establish, as defensibly as possible, just one observation about long-term South African crime prevalence trends that would seem to require explanatory effort. It collects official South African police murder statistics over the longest-possible time frame and at the lowest-possible level of aggregation and combines them with census data using Geographic Information System technology. The result is by far the most extensive and defensible possible description of South African long-term crime prevalence patterns and trends. It shows a large, unprecedented, widespread murder rate decrease from 1994 to 2011. This poses problems for existing theory and reveals the discipline's failure to even identify that which is relatively unequivocal and requires explanation. This dissertation concludes that there is an unidentified void at what should be the empirical heart of South African criminology. There is much to gain in engaging head-on the question of how to go about systematic empirical observation in the context of profound ambiguity about the meaning and measure of crime.
Open Access
State control and street gangs in Cape Town : towards an understanding of social and spatial development
(1982) Pinnock, Don
One of the more speculative tasks of this book is to assess what impact those gangs are likely to have on the changes urban South Africa will undergo in the last two decades of the 20th Century, be it peaceful, reactionary or revolutionary. A rather more immediate task, and a necessary precursor, is to explore the functions of these gangs and the causes of their existence. But this immediately leads us into wider and deeper areas, to poverty, social dislocation and strategies of class defence. And within and beyond these conditions can be found an ongoing struggle for survival, a class struggle, and the outline of the state itself. (It is here that one encounters a strange paradox: a system which upholds law and order while at the same time creating the preconditions for its breakdown.) But we must start with the street gangs. A count in 30 areas on the Cape Flats during 1982 found in daily existence 280 groups who identified themselves as gangs. Nearly 80 per cent of the gang members interviewed for this study said their group was more than 100 strong, 54 per cent put the figure at 200 and several as high as 2000. An extremely rough estimate gives a figure of 50,000 youths who would define themselves as gang members, or about five per cent of the city's total population.
Open Access
The administration of criminal justice at the Cape of Good Hope 1795-1882. Volume One and Two
(1991) Fine, Hilton Basil; Visser
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the administration of criminal justice at the Cape of Good Hope during the crucial period 1795 - 1828 in order to provide an insight into the roots of our present system and to shed some light on the various factors which could play a role in the creation of a system of criminal justice.
Open Access
The problem of marital violence in Mitchells Plain and its implications for the future of society
(1984) Lawrence, Merlyn Judy; Snyman, Henning
This dissertation examines the corresponding symbols and imagery in N. P. van Wyk Lauw' s "Groot Ode" and DIE HEENGAANREFREIN by Wi Ima Stockenstrbm. The poetic approach in both works is similar and comparable, because both poets are concerned with mankind's questing nature. In both texts man is portrayed as searching for omnipotence through omniscience. A section of the analysis is devoted to extra-textual influences on the two works. Examples of these are: genre expectations, poetic influence and the fact DIE HEENGAANREFREIN was commissioned for a special celebration. Previous analyses are also discussed briefly. The two main sections of this dissertation are ?edicated to analysing the para 11e1 ( 1) images and ( 2) motifs. The simi 1 ar i ties in the application of mirror and colour imagery are but two examples of corresponding threads in both works. Motifs are discussed as the organic entities of a text: they develop in the text and are not the stagnant components that images are. Themes of evolution and of the apocalypse are examples of motifs covered. Language as motif is very important in this analysis, because it is not only an intra-textual occurrence, but also becomes an extra-textual determination. The last section is concerned with the role that language plays ·in ordering the chaos of the universe. The anxiety that the poet experiences as ephebe/successor to God and to earlier poets is also briefly discussed.

Browsing by Subject "Criminology"

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