gangs

Terugskiet (returning fire): Growing up on thestreet corners of Manenberg, South Africa

Ted Legget, Institute for Security Studies

This chapter focuses on criminal street gangs in the Cape Flats (Cape Town)that have been a feature of coloured communities there for over fifty years,and are aligned to prison gangs, known as the numbers. Part One gives a

contextualised summary of these groups. Part Two takes a closer look at thehuman face of this phenomenon, with profiles of individuals involved. Part

Three examines possible solutions to the problem, with an evaluation ofrelevant social programmes and policies.

IntroductionThe population selected for study was the ‘coloured’1 population of the Cape Flats outside Cape Town,South Africa. While children of many ethnic communities in South Africa are involved in armed violence,the coloured population suffers the highest rates of homicide in the country (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Projected 2003 murders per 100,000 by population groupSource: Thompson, 2004

The Western Cape, where Cape Town is located, also has the highest rates of crime and homicide in thecountry (Figure 2), and the policing areas that comprise Cape Town have the highest rates within theprovince. The highest rates of violent crime, including serious assault and rape, are found in the NorthernCape. Although the South African government no longer releases statistics on ethnicity and crime, thesetwo provinces are the only ones that do not have a majority black population – over half the populationof both provinces is coloured. This would suggest that coloured areas are subject to more crime thanother areas. This assertion cannot be confirmed based on official statistics, as the government refuses torelease station level statistics.

Figure 2: 2002/3 crime rates by provinceSource: South African Police Service Crime Analysis Information Centre

The crime rates in the Western Cape are difficult to explain because the Western Cape is the most developedprovince in the country, with the lowest unemployment rates and the most equal income distribution(Table 1). This would suggest that non-economic factors are needed to explain the high crime in the area.Historical and cultural factors, such as might be associated with an ethnic group, are one possibility.

1 There is not, nor has there ever been, a clear definition of the population group referred to as ‘coloured’. Since at least the 19th century, there has been recognition of a non-Bantu-speakingethnic group located primarily in the Cape, but the term ‘coloured’ was used during this time to describe everyone who was not a colonist. The term acquired its present connotation in theearly 20th century but remained vague and subject to arbitrary manipulation. Even the Population Registration Act of 1950, which legally divided the population of South Africa into thefour ‘race’ groups still in use today, defined ‘coloured’ as “persons who are, or are generally accepted as, members of the race or class known as Cape Coloured”. Coloured people are oftenreferred to as ‘mixed race’, as if in contrast to the ‘pure’ African, Asian, and European lineages. Various groups have allegedly contributed to the gene pool, including the non-Bantu Khoi(‘Bushman’) and San (‘Hottentot’) peoples, as well as the progeny of Muslim ‘Malay’ (Indonesian) slaves. According to the 2001 Census, these people were, and continue to be, concentratedin the Western, Northern, and Eastern Cape, but have significant populations in the urban areas of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Under apartheid, they occupied a place in the hierarchybelow the whites and Indians but above the Blacks. The ‘privileges’ of being coloured did much to consolidate a sense of independent identity, but many complain that this intermediate statushas meant that they were not ‘white enough’ for the past regime and are not ‘black enough’ for the present one.

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Table 1: Development indicators: Western Cape versus South Africa

The coloured areas of the Western Cape are also unique in the country with regard to the prevalence of streetgangs. The terms ‘gang’ and ‘gangsterism’ are used by the members of these groups themselves, and indicatean identification with gangs as portrayed in the international media, particularly those of the United States.

While many communities complain of ‘gangs’, coloured gangs have become a defining part of everyday lifein the Cape Flats. They embrace all the accoutrements of classic gang culture, including:

• defending and controlling turf, which often involves violent confrontations with similarly structured rivalgangs;

• use of characteristic tattoos, hand signs, and language;• involvement in criminal enterprises, including drug dealing;• recruitment of young men in early adolescence.

Unlike the gangs of other population groups, coloured gangs have an independent institutional identity distinctfrom the personalities of the present gang members, and some have been controlling the same turf forgenerations. The greatest national concentration of these gangs is found in the coloured townships outsideCape Town in the area known as the Cape Flats. Given the facts laid out above, it was decided to focus on thisarea in the study.

MethodologyPrior to becoming involved in the COAV project, this researcher had already begun research into the reasonsbehind the high crime rates in the Western Cape and the coloured community. This included substantial deskresearch and some primary research. Most importantly, a 1,300 household victim survey was conducted inAugust 2003 in Manenberg, one of the most notorious gang areas in the Cape Flats. Sampling was randomgeographic, using the police enumeration areas (known as CAS blocks) as sampling units. As the populationof the area is estimated at about 80,000, this sample is quite substantial (nearly 2% of the general population,nearly 8% of households). In addition to the standard victim survey questions, specific questions were askedabout gangs, drugs, and involvement in the correctional system. Fieldwork was conducted by eight pollstersfrom the area, fluent in the local version of Afrikaans, over the course of a month. The questionnaires were pre-coded and the data were loaded into an SPSS file for analysis.

Source: South African Institute of Race Relations

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As a follow up to this survey, four focus groups were conducted in early October 2003 with communitymembers to flesh out the data. These were initially intended to focus on the differences in crime experiencesbetween people settled in different areas following a devastating tornado in 1999. Two youth (16 - 18year olds) and two elder (40 - 59 year olds) groups were selected from different parts of the affectedareas. The questions asked were expanded to cover some of the COAV materials.

In addition, original research was conducted for this project in the form of a two-page yes-no/true-falsequestionnaire administered to 200 secondary school students on 6 October, 2003 at three senior secondaryschools in Manenberg: Manenberg, Silverstream, and Phoenix. Fieldworkers administered thequestionnaire during class time at all three locations, starting with final year students and working downto younger classes if necessary to complete the sample.

A total of 72 males and 128 females completed the forms, including 29 16 year olds, 67 17 year olds, 6418 year olds, and 40 students 19 years or older. One possible weakness in this sample was related totiming: final year students were in the midst of preparing for examinations, so class attendance was notoptimal. It is unclear whether more- or less- motivated students were likely to have been in attendanceduring this time period. Of course, young people of these ages who attend school at all represent aparticular segment of the overall youth population.

There are inherent methodological weaknesses in giving school children a survey questionnaire to befilled out in class. The wandering eyes of their peers could lead to exaggeration or minimisation of theirexperiences, and the lack of face-to-face individual accountability removes a major disincentive to lying.In addition, the binary nature of the questions asked in this survey does not allow for shadings of meaningor explanations. Thus, this information could never be taken on its own as probative of any particularassertion, but triangulated with other forms of research, it does add value.

There are internal consistencies that add veracity to the data, however. Questions where high levels ofagreement were expected based on other research did indeed come back with positive results, whereasthose where knowledge was expected to be limited came back negatively. For example, more knowledgeof cannabis was expected than of Mandrax,2 and more of Mandrax than cocaine; the results were exactlyas anticipated. Gender divisions, while sometimes surprising in areas where strong divisions were notanticipated, were also in-line with regard to things like participation in violence. Similarly with age: olderstudents were more likely to have experienced certain types of violence than there younger counterparts.

Remarkably, however, there were some areas where the younger kids claimed more knowledge than theolder ones, suggesting that perhaps the younger cohort is growing up in a more brutal world. The youngersurvey participants claimed more knowledge of peer gang members, peer drug use, police corruption,and stabbing exposure. But some of this may be simply a product of the tendency of less mature studentsto boast.

As might be expected, those questions that related to general knowledge of criminal participation bypeers received the highest levels of agreement. The number one most affirmed assertion was thatManenberg youth are experimenting with drugs by the time they reach the final years of secondary school:95% of respondents said they thought most of their peers had tried drugs. Number two concerned generalgang involvement: 92% said they knew someone of their age or younger who was a member of a gang.

2 “Mandrax” was the trade name of a discontinued sedative pharmaceutical tablet containing methaqualone and diaphenhydramine. Illicitly manufactured versions of this drug arewidely consumed in the Cape Flats as well as in other areas of the country.

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Interview subjects for profiles in Part Two were accessed through existing community outreachstructures, specifically gang caseworkers at the community centres in Manenberg and Elsie’s River.Eight gang members were interviewed: five from the Manenberg Hard Livings (HL) Gang, two fromthe Elsie’s River 26 Americans, and one girl gangster from Manenberg, aged 17 to 29. All of thesegang members had joined in their early teens. Under 17 year old members were not interviewed,to avoid ethical complications. In addition, focus groups were held with both Manenberg andElsie’s River gang members, and four focus groups were held with Manenberg community members:two with youth 16 to 18 and two with elders 40 to 59. The Manenberg gang one-on-ones were heldin a private flat in HL territory while the focus groups were held in a venue outside the area with aspecialised interview area. The Elsie’s River interviews were held in the community centre. In orderto encourage candour, the one-on-ones were not recorded, but all the focus groups were recordedand transcribed.

In researching Part Three, the researcher contacted via telephone a range of contacts that havebeen active in either evaluating or in actively providing services to young offenders, including well-placed individuals in the Cape Town area from the National Institute for Crime Prevention and theReintegration of Offenders (NICRO), the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), and the Open SocietyFoundation (OSF), as well as requesting documents from the Gauteng-based Khulisa rehabilitationprogramme, Ekupholeni Mental Health Programme, the President’s Award programme, and theNational Peace Accord Trust. Several of these contacts were asked to identify two best practiceprogrammes aimed at children and youth in organised armed violence.

These interviews established that there are no government-run programmes in this area, and themajority of non-governmental interventions remain unevaluated. As surprising as it might soundgiven the magnitude of the problem, most of the programmes that are available are based onlittle more than the intuitions of their founders.

I. CONTEXTUALISED SUMMARY OF COAV

Area of Study ProfileSouth Africa is a country of 44.8 million people inhabiting an area of 1.2 million km,3 slightlylarger in both respects than Colombia. Since independence from apartheid rule was won in 1994,it has been divided into nine provinces. Per capita annual income was $11,290 in 2002, which,according to the United Nation’s 2003 Human Development Report, is about the same as Argentina.4

Its Gini Index (a measure of income inequality, or the shares of national income enjoyed by therichest and poorest sectors of the population) is 59.3, which, according to the UN, is not quite asbad as Brazil’s.

There are 11 official languages. According to the country’s last national census in 2000, just undera quarter of the population are native Zulu-speakers, about a fifth Xhosa-speakers, 14% speakAfrikaans at home, and 9% English, with the remainder speaking other Bantu languages. Ethnically,using the old apartheid categories, the population is about 79% black African, 10% white, 9%coloured (mixed race) and 2% Asian (primarily Indian).

3 United Nations Development Programme (2003), “Human Development Report”.4 Ibid

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HIV seroprevalance is among the highest in the world, with 20% for the population between the ages of 14 and49.5 This has reduced life expectancy to 51. Thus, while South Africa has a comparable per capita income asArgentina, Argentina is rated in the Human Development Report as the 34th most developed country of 175ranked, while South Africa sits at 111.6

Figure 3: Comparative crime rates – South Africa and England and WalesSource: South African Police Service; British Home Office

Until 1994, South Africa was a non-democratic country controlled by its white minority under the notorious policyof racial segregation known as apartheid. Since that time, there have been three national government elections,all of which were won by quite a wide margin by the African National Congress (ANC), the party of NelsonMandela, president until 1999.

Crime in South AfricaIn 1998, according to the Interpol statistics, South Africa had the highest recorded murder rate in the world, at 59per 100,000.7 According to South Africa’s official police statistics, this figure has declined considerably since thattime, coming down to about 47 per 100,000 in the 2002/3 financial year,8 but this still places the country amongthe most dangerous places in the world, at least among those that collect crime statistics. South Africa also hassome of the world’s highest rates of rape and robbery, as well as other violent crimes. But with regard to propertycrimes, the country compares favourably with developed countries, such as England and Wales (Figure 3).

Firearms ownership is high: in October 2002 there was one registered firearm for every six South Africans over20,7 and this does not take into account what is, by all estimates, a massive pool of unregistered firearms. In thefinancial year 2001/2, the South African Police Services (SAPS) reported seizing over 20,000 illegal firearms,9

and every year around 15,000 South Africans are arrested for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.10

Firearms were used in over 90,000 robberies and attempts, and in 32,000 murders and attempts in 2000.11

Thus, South Africa’s problem is not crime in general, but violent crime, including violent acquisitive crime, such asrobbery (Figure 4). While murder rates (the best indicator of the real crime situation because of minimal under-reporting) have come down consistently since 1994, indicating a decline in real violence, this change has notbeen consistent across the country. Most notably, the murder rate in the Western Province has remained high(Figure 5).

Figure 4: Comparative robbery ratesSource: Newman, 1999

Figure 5: Murder rates per 100,000 – South Africa and the Western ProvinceSource: South African Police Service

Indeed, as explained above, the Western Cape has the highest crime rate in the country, and the second highestviolent crime rate, trailing only the Northern Cape. And in crime categories where incidence has stabilised ordeclined in other urban areas, the Western Cape is experiencing continued increases.

5 Ibid6 INTERPOL (1999), “International Crime Statistics”. Lyon: International Criminal Police Organisation.7 Crime Information Analysis Centre (2004), 2002/3 Crime Statistics. http://www.saps.gov.za/8_crimeinfo/200309/index.htm8 Mistry, D., A. Minnaar, J. Redpath, and J. Dlamini (2002), “The role of the criminal justice system in excluding unfit persons from firearm ownership”. Pretoria: Unpublished report of theInstitute for Human Rights and Criminal Justice Studies, Technikon SA.9 South African Police Service (2002), “Annual Report of the South African Police Service”. Pretoria: Government Printers.10 CIAC (2004) op cit.11 Ibid.

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The Western ProvinceThe port of Cape Town assured that the area surrounding it became one of the first areas to be developedby the colonists. The Cape is subject to regular bouts of foul weather but is technically ‘temperate’ andsuitable for agriculture, particularly wine making. According to Stats SA, the Western Cape is the secondmost urbanised province in South Africa (89%), second only to Gauteng (97%).12 It is also, by quite a widemargin, the most developed province in terms of a range of indicators, as laid out in Table 1 above.

In addition, the Western Cape is second only to Gauteng in the percentage of the population with tertiaryqualifications (11.2% compared to 12.6%, against a national average of 8.4%). It is second only to theNorthern Cape in the percentage of dwellings that are formal (78.4% compared to 80.2% against anational average of 63.8%), and in it’s 2002 matriculation pass rate (87% compared to 90%, against anational average of 68%).13

It is therefore not surprising that the Western Cape experienced the fastest rate of population growth in thecountry between 1996 and 2001 (2%). In addition, it had one of the highest levels of inward migration inthe country between 1992 and 1996, second only to Gauteng.14 Fifty-one percent of these migrants werefrom the Eastern Cape,15 a province that is 83% Xhosa.16 It is therefore likely that the majority of newimmigrants to the area are black.

However, at present the dominant ethnic group in the area is coloured. According to the 2001 Censusdata, coloured people make up 54% of the population, followed by black people (27%), white people(18%) and Indians (1%).

The Cape Flats: ManenbergIn this study, gangsters were interviewed in two coloured townships – Manenberg and Elsie’s River – butmost of the additional fieldwork was done in Manenberg. Manenberg provides a good case study of acoloured township that has a long history of gang problems.

Manenberg is a township of just over 80,000 residents located just inland from the city of Cape Town. It ispart of what is called the ‘Cape Flats’, a flat, arid area into which the ‘non-white’ urban population ofCape Town was ‘removed’ under South Africa’s segregationist laws.

These laws were first extended to the coloured population under apartheid’s Group Areas Act of 1950.The Cape Flats are conveniently located within commuting distance but out of sight of the city centre.Housing black and coloured people in separate areas of the Flats allowed a ready source of cheaplabour while reserving the city itself for white residents. Since the original removals, the area has alsobecome the first stop for new migrants to the area, especially the masses of Xhosa-speaking peopleemigrating from the impoverished Eastern Cape.

Manenberg itself was established between 1966 and 1970, and consists of two types of housing: rows ofsemi-detached houses and ‘council flats’, which come in two- and three-storey permutations. Since it wasoriginally planned merely to house labour, there was little planning for the development of local businessand services, and to this day the area remains largely residential. Focus group members said they had togo outside the area to buy clothing, for example. Manenberg is separated from the neighbouring blackcommunity of Guguletu by rows of fenced-in railroad tracks.

12 South African Institute of Race Relations (2002), “Fast Facts: Provincial Profile, Western Cape”13 Ibid.14 P Kok, M O’Donnovan, O Bouare, and J van Zyl (2003) Post-apartheid patterns of internal migration in South Africa. Pretoria: HSRC Publishers.15 Ibid.16 Census 2000.

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The area has long been notorious for criminal activity, particularly gangsterism. Manenberg wasthe home of the infamous Staggie twins, Rashied and Rashaad. They led what was at one time oneof the most formidable gangs in the Cape, the Hard Livings Kids. Rashaad, who was generallyseen as the thinker of the two, was killed by the vigilante group People Against Gangsterism andDrugs (Pagad) on 4 August 1996 (discussed further below). Rashaad confronted a Pagad protestmob assembled outside his Salt River home only to be shot and burned alive, in full view of televisioncameras and the police, by the well-armed vigilante group. His brother, known as ‘Mad Dog’,continues to reign to this day, according to members of his gang, despite claims that he has convertedto Christianity, that he has an injunction barring him from entering Manenberg except to participatein anti-gang activities, and that he was recently arrested for raping a young girl.

As a girl gangster interviewed described her hometown:

It is so unliveable there. That place is almost like hell on earth. Really. That place islike hell. I don’t like that place. If I am going to have children one day I am not goingto let them grow up there. It is hell on earth.

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We must go way back – what made us gangsters. Because there was something thatgo wrong in this world – that make some people gangsters and some people … andsome people killers.

- Senior 26 American, Elsie’s River

As discussed above, while other ethnic communities in South Africa have what are referred to as‘gangs’, these tend to be short-term associations of criminal individuals, rather than institutions inthemselves.17 In common parlance, any group of delinquent young people could be referred to asa ‘gang’, but these groupings do not necessarily have a life independent of the personalities oftheir members. In other words, if the individuals involved in the ‘gang’ were to be arrested or killed,the ‘gang’ would cease to exist. This is not true for the gangs of the Cape Flats and other colouredareas of the country. For a combination of reasons that have been and will be discussed, it isespecially in the coloured community that gangs have become a dominant feature of life andlocal culture.

Institutional gangs have not always been the exclusive province of the coloured population. Theywere a major issue in the black townships around Johannesburg in the past. This has been ablydocumented by Clive Glaser (2000) in his book Bo-Tsotsi: The Youth Gangs of Soweto, 1935 -1976. Glaser argues that the political struggle for democracy absorbed many of the young peoplewho had previously turned to gangs for meaning. This level of political participation was not seenin the coloured community, and the lack of a sense of alternative purpose for angry youth may beone reason why gangs persist in the Cape Flats. It is also cause for concern that, as politicalmomentum is lost and emerging black youth lose faith in the ability of the government to deliveron development promises in their lifetimes, black gangs may emerge as an unintended by-productof democratic victory. There are some reports that this is already happening, especially in theblack townships that abut coloured areas.

17 There are reports that this is changing, particularly in the black areas adjoining coloured townships.

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In general, at present, two types of institutional gangs in South Africa are prominent: the prison(numbers) gangs; and the coloured street gangs. As will be discussed further below, these wereoriginally quite distinct from one another; with time, however, there developed some degree ofoverlap and interchange between the two.

The numbers gangsThe numbers allegedly date back to the 19th Century, according to their own quasi-Masonicrendering of their origins and apparent historical ties to a Zulu gang called the Ninevites that wasactive in the Witwatersrand during the closing years of the century. These groups, supposedly blackAfrican in origin, are open to members of any ethnic group, but are dominated by coloureds in theWestern Cape.

The iconography and mythos of the numbers gangs relate back to their colonial origins, and mirrorthe structures that oppressed prisoners back then. Obligatory tattoos (‘chappies’, a word that isalso a local brand name for bubble gum) reflect the symbols of their foundation myth, or ‘boeke’,and include books, swords, and military insignia.

In their classic form, the numbers were three: 26s (the camp of the daylight, dedicated to raisingmoney by trickery), the 28s (camp of the night, dedicated to improving conditions in prison), andthe 27s (the camp of blood, dedicated to moderating disputes between the other two factions).Initially, all the gangs were intended to work together, each performing its own specialised functionfor the good of all gang members. The division between the 26s and the 28s started over the issueof whether sex between prisoners should be officially sanctioned by the gang. Today, the 28s arebest known for their keeping of ‘wives’: gang members whose role is to provide sex and performother ‘feminine’ services. The 27s have never been a large body, because of their thankless role asintermediaries.

These three groups were, according to the members, originally prisoner’s rights groups, as onesenior 26 gangster explained:

The prison number 26, 27 and 28 – that is the prison numbers. Now the prison numberisn’t gangsters. It is people who fight for their rights. When they are in prison thereare the prison orders. You don’t get coffee. Your porridge is cold and things like that.Then we discussed about it. Like gangs – sabela. We talk about it. We call it ‘sabela’... When we are finished with that then we know what we are going to do. Either theygive us our warm coffee we want, our warm porridge we want, our food the way wewant it. If he don’t give it – we will stab you. There will be guys that will go and stabyou. Not all of us. Only two or three. Then we tell in court it is about that – there arepeople that go into Pretoria – they were hanged in prison for their rights. Becausethey were suffering.

Thus, the rules of the gangs were principally about life in prison, and governed the sales of drugsand other contraband, sexual and other types of violence, and other such matters. They also cameto be present in youth reformatories18 and, according to informants in this study, have becomeeven more prominent in reform schools than in prison.

18 Children convicted of criminal offences can be sentenced to residential reformatory schools, which often teach industrial skills.

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In the 1980s, however, with the growth of the drug trade and its potential profits, the numbers gangsbegan to take a greater interest in the street gangs. New gangsters, prominent in the street but unknowninside prison walls, had the resources to buy prison gang rank and associated lore.19 Eventually, prisongangs began to manifest themselves under their own names on the streets, and street gangsters who hadnever been to prison could buy numbers membership. One informant in this study claims Rashied Staggiewas key in bringing prison gang membership to the streets.

It was 1984 when it start – they come out – prisoners – Staggie and those – they all cameout that year. 1984/1985 - now they come out – they start making business. Selling drugs.Rashied personally decided to stamp the boys – youngsters outside. He decided to stampthem HL and to make them number gangs outside the prison. That was the break in thetradition – you don’t get your number outside of prison. Rashied decided because theirfight against the Americans and the Americans was so many and so powerful – that theyalso wanted to recruit as many of the youngsters as possible and it is a fact that Rashiedpersonally gave the order and he himself got involved in stamping the youth.


At least one key analyst argues that this date is too early, and that the numbers only appeared on thestreets in 1989 at the earliest.20

Aside from these classic numbers, several spin off gangs emerged and still persist in the province ofGauteng: the so-called ‘fourth camp’, gangs calling themselves the 24s, the 25s, and the 29s. These arenot acknowledged by the classic gangs for the most part, and have been virtually eliminated in theWestern Cape. The 29s, for example, refer to themselves as the ‘Royal Airforce’ and are dedicated toescaping from prison, an ethos which is directly contrary to that of the original numbers, whose membersare dedicated to making a life for themselves inside.

At present, the primary feud on the streets is between 26s and 28s. Once outside the prison walls, the 26/28 conflict fell in line with street alliances, mainly the division between so-called ‘Firm’ and ‘non-Firm’aligned gangs (see below). The most prominent of the non-Firm gangs is the Americans, which are typicallyseen as 26 aligned, while the Firm gangs are seen as 28 aligned. This division is uneasy, however, becausein prison members of any street gang can join either number. Even the Staggie twins, one-time leaders ofthe Hard Livings Gang, had different numbers: Rashaad was a 26, and Rashied is a 28. Thus, prison gangbrothers could become street gang enemies, and vice versa.

How this is ultimately negotiated seems to vary a lot from case to case. According to one junior ManenbergHL member, the power of the numbers was largely restricted to prison: “He can’t tell me here what to do– he might do so in jail. That is their place. They might hit us there, but here we can hit them.”

Street gangsWhile their names have changed over the years, street gangs have been a major feature in the colouredcommunity since at least the end of WWII.21 In their early manifestations in District Six (a mixed race areain central Cape Town which was dismantled under Group Areas), and elsewhere, they were often protectiveneighbourhood formations designed to fend off ‘skollies’ (wandering criminals). But often these protectiveformations became predatory as members took over rival criminal operations and began to extractprotection money from community members.22

19 Street gangsters had always joined the numbers while in prison, but formerly they had to start at the bottom, no matter how big they were on the outside. The drug money allowed streetgang members to buy rank in the numbers.20 Jonny Steinberg, personal communication.21 Don Pinnock (1988) op cit.22 Ibid.

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Gangs in the original coloured areas became especially important after the Group Areas forced removals,because young men from different communities were removed to the same area and found themselves incompetition for scarce local resources. The clearest lines of formation were along lines of the previouscommunities, and so the gangs found a new identity in the Cape Flats. This also had the consequence ofcreating cells of District Six gangs in different communities, a fact that made regional organisation apossibility.

The introduction of Mandrax in the mid 1980s and crack cocaine after 1994 added new fuel to the gangfire. Suddenly, gangs provided the real possibility of wealth for a select few. The Americans gang, headedby Athlone-based gangster Jackie Lonte, is generally credited with introducing crack to the Cape Flats.According to one senior 26 American gangster:

Jackie Lonti – he was one of the first guys that went to Brazil – he went over to Latin Americato go and negotiate deals and from then onwards these mules were coming to SA. In mychurch there is one – a church girl of 16 or 17 years of age – who is sitting in prison in Brazilnow as a result of being a mule, but then she was caught. Jackie Lonte’s story – Jackie hadan association with the … and all kind of Americans and he was one of the key guys thatbrought Americans together. Through his connection with his dealings and so. He was avery daring character. He lived – he operated in the Athlone area. He was also a veryviolent kind of character. Jackie was the cause of the organisation People AgainstGangsterism and Drugs being formed. Because he got these people – they were now highon drugs and they couldn’t pay and who needed to use those drugs on a regular basis –addicted to drugs – he then got them to leave their vehicles at his house. So they had topawn their cars and their guns and so on. These were the kids of rich Muslim Indian families.Many occasions they would get phone calls from Jackie Lonte or his men to demandmoney from the parents of these kids, whom he held captive at one of his venues and ifthey didn’t pay …then he would threaten the families. So Jackie was in Ecstasy, speed – allkinds of drugs and so Jackie was the reason why Pagad was formed.

The Firm, organised by notorious 28 gangster Colin Stanfield of Vahalla Park in 1996, was an attempt toorganise all the gangs into a single money-making business and to reduce in-fighting. There is evidencethat he was partly effective in this attempt, but that a faction of 26 aligned Americans, including theinfluential Jackie Lonte, broke away. This central fissure remains a source of conflict to this day.

Each generation seems to spawn its own street gangs, but these are usually in some way continuations ofearly versions. Thus, older gangsters who might have once been members of The Mongrels, The CapeTown Scorpions, or The Born Free Kids may today be members of The Junkie Funkie Kids, The Dixie Boys,or The Clever Kids.

The proliferation of gangs with ‘Boys’ or ‘Kids’ in the name may partially be a result of school groupings(‘baby gangs’) being integrated wholesale into the established gang groupings, and sometimes takingover. Thus, older respondents in the present study were often members of groups such as The Mongrels orThe Cape Town Scorpions in their youths, but are presently members of gangs controlling the same areas,simply renamed. School age children play at being gangsters and form formations for mutual protectionand general mischief. It can be difficult to differentiate between these groups and street gangs. Accordingto a youth from Manenberg, “Sometimes a group just name themselves, but they don’t become gangsters.They just name them for the name. Not for other motives – only for the name.”

But sometimes these playgroups emulate their elder siblings, taking the names of street gangs, andeventually graduating as a cohort into street gang membership.

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Playtime it is just like a hopie [small crowd] here, hopie here. They fight amongst eachother. Then they make up some of their friends – who don’t go to school – to wait forthis little guys. These guys are not gangsters – they are decent chappies. But now theygo under ….

- Elder community member, Manenberg

Actors InvolvedThere is no easy way of estimating how many gangs or gang members there are in the Cape Flats.There is no clear dividing line between wannabe groups like the school gangs and real street gangs,and the names and territories of street gangs are subject to constant amendment. Prison gangmembership is binding even after release, but former inmate’s involvement in ongoing criminalityvaries considerably. Even the concept of ‘membership’ is vague, because many gangs go throughslumps during which regular involvement in gang activities may be suspended.

Despite this, estimates of numbers abound, often slanted to emphasise the seriousness of the problem.One community worker interviewed had this to say:

You will be surprised – in this area [Elsie’s River] there are 5,500 gang members. In thewhole Western Cape there is 150,000 gang members. They organise – they have cellshere and they have cells there.

The victim survey in Manenberg can provide some indication of gang prevalence. Since the surveyarea (the police station area) was not restricted to Manenberg proper and included a number ofmore affluent areas, only 60% of the respondents said they felt a gang controlled their area. Ofthose, the following gangs were mentioned as controlling respondents’ neighbourhoods:

• Americans (57% of mentions)• Hard Livings Kids (29%)• Junky Funky Kids (22%)• Dixie Boys (17%)• Clever Kids (12%)• Cat Pounds (10%)• Jesters (8%)

According to the police, the Cat Pounds are an upstart school gang, and are comprised mainly ofschool-age members. This illustrates the dynamic nature of the pool of street gangs.

While the number of mentions could have been affected by sampling, this would appear to representa decline in the fortunes of the Hard Livings, who formerly dominated the area, in favour of theAmericans. But most of these gang territories seem to be well established, since 75% of those polledsaid the gang had been in their area for more than three years. While territories may be small,membership is believed to be high: 53% said the gang that controlled their area had more than 50members; 16% said it had more than a hundred. In addition, 72% said the size of gangs had increasedin the last five years.

The school survey also suggested that gang domination of the entire territory of Manenberg is notcomplete: 56% said a gang controlled the area where they live, with equal shares of boys and girlsso responding. This corresponds well to the 60% of victim survey respondents who said there weregangs in their area.

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This would suggest a substantial share of the young male population is involved in gangs, butestimating the total number of gang members, or gang member prevalence, is difficult. A quarterof respondents were willing to admit that they had friends or family members who were membersof gangs, and 7% said that a gang member resided in their households. But 7% also refused to saywhether gang members resided in their households, so the number may be higher still. Fieldworkersreported that subjects bearing clear gang tattoos would deny that gang members were residing inthe household when asked during the survey.

In the school survey, a total of 19% of the boys said that someone in their home is a gang member,compared to 13% of the girls. This makes sense if some of the male respondents were themselvesgang members. While the victim survey found only 7% of the respondents willing to say that a gangmember lived in their household, this varied by the age of the respondent: less than 4% ofrespondents over 50 said they lived with gang members.

Given that 40% of the households said no gang controlled their area, this would suggest that thereare neighbourhoods where as many as one household in eight or nine could house a gang member.Using only the share of households willing to admit harbouring a gang member, this suggests atthe very least 1,400 gang households in a community of about 80,000, and it is possible (if notlikely) that multiple members could reside in a single household. A community estimate of over5,000 members, such as the one given by the community worker above, could be in the rightballpark. This would account for about 30% of the male demographic between the ages of 10 and30.

Command StructureSince this project concerns children and youth in organised armed violence, the focus is on streetgangs. While prison gangs do have a street presence today, this is largely merged with street gangmembership, as is the case with the Elsie’s River 26 Americans. The rank structure of the numbergangs is military, with each member being taught a complex description of the imaginary uniformthey wear. For example, according to one source, the rank structure of the 26 gang (andaccompanying insignia of office) is as follows, in order of seniority:

Makwezi (16 stars)General (also known as maspaal or slagozi – 12 stars)Fighting General (also called madageni or band – 8 stars)Captain 1 (also called draad or tandolo – 6 stars)Captain 2 (4 stars)Sergeant Major (3 stripes and a castle)Sergeant 1 (3 stripes)Sergeant 2 (2 stripes)Nongidela (also called mountain or berg).23

23 Senior Superintendent J A Vearey, “Intelligence Coordination Report”. Unpublished report.

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The ranking structure of street gangs, in contrast to the prison gangs, is often informal, with dominantmembers commanding respect more from force of personality than by reference to status withinthe institution. There is also considerable variation between gangs and even within gangs situatedin different areas in this regard. The Manenberg Hard Livings, for example, seems to have a flatleadership structure, with a semi-democratic form of decision-making based on weekly groupmeetings. The authority of the Staggie family is not questioned, but beyond that, authority seemsto rise from initiative more than from formal promotions. Terms like ‘laksman’, ‘dikneck’, and ‘slagozi’are tossed about, but these seem more honorific titles than designations of structural authority. TheAmericans interviewed in this study in Elsie’s River, on the other hand, were heavily aligned to the26s, and thus acknowledged their rank structure. They were also dealing with what appears to be amuch more lucrative local drug market, and so had a need for a more rigid chain of command.

Within the gang, there does appear to be some functional designation. Sales of drugs, for example,seem to be mostly limited to designated individuals, but this too may vary across time. Juniormembers, including the youngest members, are assigned to the front line during confrontations.Members with skills and talents (such as mechanical skills or business acumen) are assigned toduties that exploit these talents. According to a junior HL gang member in Manenberg, “They lookfor guys with business acumen. They get higher responsibilities within the gangs.”

Given the Staggie example, it would seem possible for gang leaders to head an organisation,even if not allowed to enter the township. Most, if not all, top gang leaders live outside the CapeFlats, although they do maintain homes in the townships.

Imprisoned leaders are given great deference, in part as a self-protection measure in case ofincarceration. Sunday is the traditional day to visit gang leaders and comrades in prison. Thefollowing quotes all come from junior HL members in Manenberg:

It is a culture in the gangs that you must go and show your respect – keep the contactand show the guy that you supporting [him]. One person is only allowed to have onevisitor – then each one of them give a name of someone that is inside. A whole lot ofthem can come out and when they are out there they just speak to each other for acouple of minutes. They exchange. That is what they do – that is how everybody getsto see everybody.

The primary purpose of these visits would seem to be to bring money and contraband to the inmates:“You can’t go empty handed to jail – you have to take him some money.”

It would appear that gang leaders can still order hits from inside, but they are carried out inanticipation of future reward.

He phones out of jail –someone is getting out of jail and he wants him killed. He isstill in jail, so he tells you to do it. The big guy is coming out then and then – we mustkill him. Then they pay you – when they come out they will pay you.

At least one focus group respondent argued that imprisoned leaders still called the shots: “If thereis a gang fight and the gang leader is in prison – then he give the command to the outside people.”

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Relations with the CommunityMedia stories, as well as the focus groups of this study, suggest that the extent to which gangs aresupported by their communities varies across gangs, across areas, and across time. The recentrallying of Valhalla Park residents to demand the early release of notorious gang boss Colin Stanfield,who was serving time for tax evasion but had contracted cancer with a prognosis of a few months oflife remaining, illustrates one side of the spectrum. But in Manenberg, only 14% said they believedgang members to be respected by the community, and 5% refused to answer the question.

Most community members interviewed agreed that it was possible to avoid involvement with thegangs by minding your own business. While gang members needed to be greeted on the street andshown respect, the community members argued that they could not force anyone to become involvedwith them unless the relationship was, at least initially, voluntary.

That is why you must be aware of the gangs. They are very cunning. They suck you in.You can be a humble guy too. But if they get a loophole they will suck you in. That ishow it is done. They can’t hurt you if you ignore them. You are doing nothing. I justignore them – walk past them. If they greet me I just say hi.


The way gangs win new supporters is by offering assistance in various forms. Oftentimes, thisassistance is economic, and the poverty of the area means that many people will eventually findthemselves turning to the gangs for help.

They wait for you to come and ask them. When you start asking them you are goingback and going back. Then when you go back to them – ‘keep this parcel for me.’Now you are in it.- Elder community member, Manenberg

Another elder community member in Manenberg said, “I told my wife, ‘You don’t take anythingfrom any one of them – nothing. If we haven’t got a bread in the house – don’t ask anybody.’”

In exchange for silence, some community members felt the gang members should protect theresidents of their turf from crime. An elder community member from Manenberg stated that “If theystole your stuff you go to the gang leader and if it is one of them then they will get a hiding.”

But over half of the respondents said gang members stole from community members exclusively,while 39% said they stole from both the community and outsiders. Although a third of respondentssaid gang members helped people with money sometimes, 89% said gang members did not protectnon-gang members, and 84% said non-gang members would not approach gang members inorder to resolve a problem.

The gangsters actively cultivate a ‘Robin Hood’ image with the children of the community. RasheedStaggie is well known for throwing money to the children of Manenberg. As might be expected, hehas attained celebrity status with the youngest demographic. An elder community member inManenberg said, “You must see how the children like him. They go mad when they see him.”

From the youngest ages, boys play at being gangsters. An elder community member in Manenbergsaid, “[My son] is six years old and he says, ‘Ma, I am a Naughty Boy, because there is Naughty Boygangsters.’”

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The gang leaders also sponsor community youth activities, such as sports teams:

The gang leaders are like celebs here, because they sponsor soccer teams and nowpeople see it as they are good people. They sponsor soccer, but they also get somethingout.- Community youth, Manenberg

They are also prominent leaders of troops that compete in the annual ‘Coon Carnival’, a celebrationthat features brightly costumed musicians and singers marching in parade, one of the most visiblemanifestations of coloured culture. This relationship reinforces the extent to which gangsterism is perceivedas part of coloured identity.

Role of the StateOnly 15% of victim survey respondents said they saw a police member in uniform in their area at leastonce a day, much less than the 29% who so answered nationally in the ISS 2003 National Victims ofCrime survey, and 15% said they never saw the police in their area. More than half of respondentssurveyed felt the police were doing a poor job, and many felt this was because they refused to comeinto the area (24% of mentions) or that they were just lazy (20%). This is seen as different from theapartheid past:

TTTTThe police were on patrol, which we don’t do anymore today. They were walking in twosand threes. They were walking. ‘You watch that boy’ – you stand on that corner there andthey will tell you, ‘if we catch you here again next time when we come down…’


But neglect would seem to be the least of people’s worries. When asked why they felt the police weredoing a poor job, 42% mentioned corruption. There are longstanding beliefs that the police, if not thestate itself, have been working with the gangsters. In the BBC documentary “Cape of Fear”, taped priorto democracy, Rashied Staggie bragged that the police were the source of his firearms. There arepersistent rumours that the apartheid state used the gangs to hit political activists and to neutralisepolitical dissent in the coloured community. Whether this was official state policy or simply the innovationof certain security branch members is debatable. As has been documented elsewhere, security branchmembers often operated outside the law, and saw profiteering off of activities that advanced the causeas legitimate compensation for services rendered to the state.24

Only a minority of 41% of victim survey respondents was willing to say that the police took protectionmoney from gangsters, but younger people were more cynical. In the school survey, 82% said that theybelieve that the police are paid off by gangsters. Fewer girls (37%) than boys (46%) had direct knowledgeof someone paying a bribe in order to be let off for an offence.

Focus group participants were vocal about seeing money changing hands. Police members were saidto drink or consume drugs at gang-controlled shebeens (informal bars), even while on duty, in uniform.The debriefing of the survey fieldworkers suggested that specific police members could be named whotipped off gangsters whenever a raid was imminent.

24 Pauw, J (1997) “Into the heart of darkness: Confessions of apartheid’s assassins.” Cape Town: Jonathan Ball.

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The police come beforehand to warn a drug dealer that there is going to be a raid. He isgoing to get paid because he gave them a tip-off. Everything boils down to money thesedays.


In the focus groups, reservists in particular were mentioned as gang informants. As stated by an eldercommunity member from Manenberg, “These guys who are selling the drugs – they have got reservists orwhatever that is working for the police – they inform them.”

In addition, focus group respondents felt that the police would tip off gangsters whenever a communitymember filed a complaint against them: “If you go to lay a charge – you open up a case against any ofthem the police will phone that guy to say this person has been here to report a case.”

Eighty-two per cent of victim survey respondents said the police would not be able to protect them if theywanted to be a witness in a murder trial.

The police were accused of being actively involved in the drug trade. According to an elder communitymember from Manenberg, “The police take from one drug merchant and they will go and sell the samething to another merchant in the area. The police are responsible for doing that.” Another elder from theManenberg community said, “I saw – the policeman came and he gives them drugs and they give himmoney.”

Even if not actively involved, they were accused of extorting money from drug merchants:

That policeman will come to me and he will say to me – just tell me where the stuff is. Hewill tell his buddies – you go there and search there and he will go where my stuff is – thenhe protect it. ‘I have already been there so it is no use going to search there anymore.’ Hewill return to you and you have to give him something, because he saved it.


Illegal and Legal Commerce ActivityWhile drugs seem to be the major source of income, the Cape Flats gangs are involved in a range ofother activities, which vary from area to area and by gang. In the HLs, for example, those not assigned todrug sales may find themselves with a lot of time on their hands when there is no gang war pending. Muchof the crime they commit is opportunistic, but occasionally a junior member will plot a more involvedcaper. If he does so, he can count on the gang to make guns and transport available, as well as providinga host of accomplices and a well-developed fencing network.

But the mainstay of gang criminal commerce is the drug trade. Drugs seem to be a defining characteristicof community life, and according to the victim survey, 35% of respondents could name a drug addict intheir community.

I have a son he goes to work every morning at 5h00. I just tell him that he is a one daymillionaire because he gets paid today and tomorrow he doesn’t even have money to buyone cigarette. All the money go to drugs. Sometimes I don’t even have food in my house,because that is the way he go on. He is 37 years old. He is not married. He haven’t gotchildren, but he goes to work every day. If the amount is out today – he even go at midnightto draw money – just to smoke.


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Victim survey respondents felt drug use had increased in the past five years (79%) and that most ofthe crime in the area was drug-related (69%). A remarkable 38% of respondents of all ages knewwhere to buy cannabis, and 30% knew where to buy Mandrax. These figures include all respondents,including the elderly. Among school children, the figures were even more shocking. A startling 79%of the respondents said they knew where to buy cannabis (referred to locally as ‘dagga’) inManenberg, including 86% of the boys and 75% of the girls. Seventy per cent said they knew whereto buy Mandrax: 74% of the boys and 68% of the girls. Just under half of the youth said they knewwhere to buy crack, with more girls than boys so responding. More than two-thirds of the boys saidthey knew someone of their age or younger who sold drugs, and knew someone of their age oryounger who needs drugs everyday, compared to just over half of the girls.

Mandrax, a street version of a discontinued pharmaceutical sedative of the same name, is abusedin South Africa like nowhere else in the world. The tablet is smoked with a combination of tobaccoand cannabis that has been treated with a solvent in a combination known as a ‘white pipe’. Urinetesting of nearly 3,000 arrestees sampled in three cities in 1999/2000 found that over half ofcoloured men in the sample tested positive for Mandrax in their systems.25 Mandrax has been oneof the primary commodities traded by gang members since the mid-1980s, and its dis-inhibitiveeffects have been associated with violence.

One of the unintended positive side effects of apartheid was that the main hard drugs abusedinternationally (cocaine, heroin, and amphetamine-type substances) were kept out of South Africa.After 1994, for reasons discussed elsewhere,26 these drugs began to flood into the country. In theurine testing mentioned above, 9% of coloured arrestees tested positive for cocaine, a drug thatonly remains testable for 48 hours after consumption, and were second only to white arrestees inso testing. Crack has become a major drug of trade for the gangs, particularly related to theprostitution trade. The Hard Livings have cells assigned to Seapoint in the heart of Cape Town,where prostitution and drug sales are very lucrative.

According to one community worker, who was not contradicted by HLs present, they are also involvedin a range of other businesses:

They have mechanics also that fix their cars. Rasheid and them also bought into thesecurity industry. They have the relationship with the security company. The host ofother kind of ventures. If you want a car or anything they can get it. The HL’s doesn’tneed to steal a car. They can order a car and if it is important enough for the boss orthe gang leaders then they will say – go to that guy and he will give you a car – youcan take that car.

According to Standing (2003), gangsters are not only the primary salesmen of drugs, but also theirprimary consumers, an argument that tallies well with the urine testing results. As will be discussedfurther on in the report, addiction may be a way that gang members are kept in the gangs.

25 Ted Leggett (2001), “Drugs and crime in South Africa: A study in three cities”, ISS Monograph 69. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.26 Leggett, T (2001), “Rainbow Vice: The drugs and sex industries in the new South Africa”. London: Zed Books and Cape Town: David Phillip.

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Armed ConfrontationsThe following article was released in May 2003 by the South African Press Association:

Ongoing gang-related violence on the Cape Flats seems to have stabilised after thedeployment of hundreds of police to affected areas last week, Western Cape PoliceCommissioner, Lennit Max said on Sunday.Max said in a statement late on Sunday afternoon that 232 suspects had been arrested sinceThursday in Mitchells Plain, Bishop Lavis, Bonteheuwel, Steenberg, Manenberg and otherparts of the Cape Peninsula…The increased police presence became necessary after three young children were shot andkilled in shoot-outs between gangs within the space of a week. In the latest incident 10-year-old Desmone Smith was wounded in the Kalksteenfontein area on Thursday night. She diedin hospital on Friday… [Max] said 380 members of the South Africa Police Service (SAPS), SA National DefenceForce (SANDF), City Police and local law enforcement officers took part in an operation onThursday.More policemen and soldiers were deployed after the incident in which Smith was killed.Four men and boys aged between 14 and 24 were arrested, all of them linked to the shooting,Max said.

Armed violence is a fact of everyday life in the Cape Flats, as the Manenberg school survey revealed. Nearlyhalf the boys surveyed said they had held a loaded gun, compared to 28% of the girls. Not surprisingly,then, 32% of the boys said they knew where to buy an illegal gun, compared to 22% of the girls. While 17%of the boys said they had carried a gun to protect themselves in the past, only two of the girls said they haddone so. But six of the girls said they had brought some (unspecified) weapon to school for protection.

As would be expected, more people had seen people injured than had witnessed killings, but the share in allcategories is frighteningly high. Eighty-two per cent said they had seen someone stabbed, 86% of the boysand 80% of the girls. Two-thirds had seen someone shot: 71% of the boys and 63% of the girls. As would beexpected, the older students were more likely to have had the experience than younger ones: 59% of the 16year olds compared to 75% of those 19 or older. A remarkable 79% of 18 year old males said they hadseen someone shot.

Just under half of the children reported seeing another human being killed: 51% of the boys and 45% of thegirls – 62% of the 18 year olds claimed to have had this experience.

Among the gangsters, violence was even more exaggerated, and nearly all of those interviewed had beenshot and had shot other people. The reasons for this violence vary from area to area. In Manenberg, gangmembers reported major conflicts breaking out over trivial incidents related to offended honour and territory,such as fights over women or retribution for the robbery of a gang member. In Elsie’s River, most of theviolence reported revolved around the drug trade, but instances of extreme violence being used to resolvepetty slights were also cited.

Most of the violence seems to be between rival gangs; direct armed confrontations with the police are lesscommon.

The police come and patrol and we are on the corner and they have got weapons and weknow we can’t get away – then we will shoot our way out of the situation and we don’t carewhether we kill the cops or not.

- Junior HL gang member, Manenberg

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The availability of firearms means that juvenile feuds quickly become lethal. The need for protection andto access firearms drives many into gang membership.

We were 14 years old then. That was the time when we threw stones. I saw that wasn’t goingto work, because we threw stones at them and they shot at us. So I decided to get a gun tooand shoot back as well. You shoot at me and therefore I will shoot back at you.

- Junior HL gang member, Manenberg

Thus, gangsterism may be as much a response to local violence levels as it is a cause.

Based on the school survey, there are plenty of guns to go around. While there was great concern aboutthe disposal of military-type weapons used during the struggle for democracy, as well as the influx ofthese arms from Mozambique, the AK-47 has never emerged as a tool for criminals, with the exception ofsome semi-political violence in KwaZulu-Natal and the odd cash-in-transit robbery. Most of the smallarms used by gang members are the traditional semi-automatic pistols used by criminals in the developedworld.

Firearms as a cause of death have increased their importance dramatically in recent years. Among colouredyoung men, homicide is the leading cause of non-natural death, and firearms have recently surpassedknives as the leading instrument of coloured homicide (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Causes of coloured homicideSource: Thomson, 2004

Child and Youth InvolvementAccording to the victim survey, formal gang membership is believed to start around the onset ofadolescence. While 28% said the youngest gang member they knew was under 12; 87% said the youngestwas under 14. This is confirmed by one-on-one interviews with gang members, as all started between theages of 13 and 15, and the bulk started at 13. There is consensus that the age of gang involvement hasdecreased over the years.

Today you get the gangsters – they are all children from 12 up to 14. In my time I knowabout gangsters. If you want to be a gangster you must start from 20 years old.


All gang members interviewed confirmed that they were armed immediately upon entering the gang.Indeed, one member was armed even before he formally joined, because of his express intent to killmembers of a rival gang. Junior members are expected to form the front lines in any confrontation, asthey must prove their worth to their seniors, who stand behind. It would appear that no jobs are prohibitedfor young people, and that any youngster showing talent for an aspect of gang work would be allowed toapply these skills for the benefit of the gang.

But unlike other areas of the world, gang members can remain affiliated and active until their 40s and50s. There is no easy way to estimate the ratio between child members and adult members in the gangs,in part because the concept of gang membership remains rather fluid.

Public Health StatisticsAs has been discussed before, murder is the most common cause of non-natural death among colouredyoung people, particularly for young males. Indeed, more than half of all death among coloured malesin the 16-30 year old demographic is caused by murder (Figure 7).

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Figure 7: Percentage of all coloured deaths caused by homicide, 16-30 year age group, by genderSource: Thomson, 2004

Special Focus: AlcoholAs will be discussed later in the report, alcohol is often cited as a main cause of the dysfunctional familiesthat fuel gangsterism. No piece discussing the causes of violence in the coloured communities of theWestern Cape would be complete without some mention of the alcohol problem.

Due to their presence in the country’s wine growing areas, many coloured people have historically workedin the vineyards. As a result of the so-called ‘dop system’, in which labourers were paid part of their wagesin wine, alcoholism is rife in certain parts of the community. A 1995 survey of Stellenbosch farms revealedthat the dop system was still prevalent on 9.5% of farms, and the legacy of alcoholism could extend wellbeyond the years of farm labour. The dop system is diabolical in its ability to keep labour submissive anddependent, and has had the side effect of promoting violence, dysfunctional families, and foetal alcoholsyndrome.

The Western Cape has the country’s highest rates of arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol.According to Parry (1999), a 1998 study found that 55% of all non-natural deaths in Cape Town hadblood alcohol concentrations equal to or greater than .08g/100ml, with the highest levels being foundamong homicide victims and transportation deaths. An ongoing Department of Transportation studyfound that 13% of pedestrians stopped nationwide after office hours had blood alcohol levels above.08g/100ml, but in the Western Cape, the figure was 23%.

The Western Cape has one of the highest incidences of foetal alcohol syndrome in the world. Individualswith foetal alcohol syndrome may become involved in crime as victims or perpetrators due to poorjudgement and a low frustration threshold. A study in British Columbia found that 24% of youth in jailshowed evidence of foetal alcohol syndrome or foetal alcohol effects. A 1997 study in Wellington inBoland found that nearly one out of every 20 coloured school children (4.8%) showed signs of foetalalcohol syndrome.

According to the Department of Health, the coloured male population is the group most likely to engagein ‘risky drinking’ during the workweek (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Percent of males reporting drinking five or more drinks per day during the workweekSource: Department of Health

II. COAV PROFILES

Personal HistoriesAnalysts trying to explain the violence in the coloured community have to address the fact that colouredpeople are, on average, better off than blacks, who tend to be less involved in violence.27 They have toexplain why coloured people have had the highest murder rate of any ethnic group since 1914, despitedramatically changing social contexts.28 They also have to explain the prevalence and unique qualities ofgangsterism in this community.

27 See Part 1 and Thomas (2004).28 Op cit

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The gang members were asked about their personal histories before joining the gangs in order to assesshow background influences gang membership. It emerged that there is no simple, linear relationshipbetween most social indicators and gang membership. Gang members experience essentially the samelevels of deprivation as their non-gang peers. The choice to become a gang member would appear to bean individual one, made in a context where gangsterism provides a relatively attractive way of fillingtime.

Of the seven male gang members interviewed, backgrounds varied considerably. Some were on goodterms with their families and lived at home, while others were estranged. Some described their familyincome as average or good compared to the rest of Manenberg, while some saw themselves as relativelypoor. Most came from very large families, but some did not: the average household size among the gangmembers was eight, but the average household size in the Manenberg victim survey sample was six. Mostlived with and were on good terms with their families, but not all of them. Some had gang members intheir families, but some did not. While some had been employed, all of it was unskilled or semi-skilled,and none of it lasted longer than a year. All joined gangs between the ages of 12 and 15, with a mode of13, so that they had very little life before gangsterism, and all dropped out of high school (Table 1).

Table 1: Answers to suggested background variables

Of course, they all had in common the experience of growing up in Manenberg, with the exception ofBekkies, who moved to the area at the age of nine from the similarly gang-ridden township of Pontyville.While not every boy raised in Manenberg becomes involved in gangs, the figures discussed previouslysuggest the behaviour may affect as many as one out of three. This takes gang membership out of thecategory of a deviant behaviour, at least in the Manenberg context. To determine risk and resiliencefactors inside the community would require far more extensive research, but the variation in backgroundsseen just in this small sampling of gang members would rule out simplistic explanations. In short,vulnerability to gang participation may be linked to several factors affecting the entire colouredcommunity in the Cape Flats, including:

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• dysfunctional families, possibly linked to high levels of alcohol and drug abuse andovercrowding, leading to children spending a lot of time on the streets;

• ironically, population stability, which may fuel the formation of gangs;• a sense of marginalisation and social exclusion under both political dispensations.

Each of these will be discussed in turn.

Dysfunctional familiesCommunity members had strong feelings on why Manenberg generates gangsters.

I will speak from the coloured point of view – gangsterism can start in a house – Idon’t say in all houses. When a child grows up in a house there should be love firstly– from parents toward them. So that they feel this place where I am staying – I ambeing cared for. I have a place to sleep. I am being fed, clothed. My mother andfather loves me. They really care for me. You create for them an environment whichthey feel they don’t want to leave. They grow up – they go to school. They learn youput the law down. That at least gives them something to get on with in life once theydecide to leave the house. When – I think – this is again my view – when mother andfather are loveless – don’t care for the kids and mother and father both drink – thereis no love … and caring for the children. The kids grow up in the loveless situation.They don’t – when they have a problem they go to father and he sits there with a dopand the child comes, ‘Dad, listen I must do this for school.’ ‘Don’t bother me, getaway. Go to mother.’ The same thing happens there. Mother haven’t got time – ‘Goand ask your father.’ All these little things – they build up to something in that child.That child never has the attention of mother and father. They are busy with their ownthing. When that child grows up – never had comfort – there is no warmth. There isno love in the house – that is how eventually things – there is more comfort, warmthand love outside by my friends than in this house. That is why they seek companyoutside. Which perhaps they find – unfortunately – amongst the gangsters. And inmost instances those guys will tell you the same story that you are going through inyour home. No love. Then the two of them click. They perhaps get started. They aregoing to look for some more guys that has got the same thing going in their life andthey come together and they form a gang. ‘We feel nice – we understand one another.We have no feeling for others because nobody has a feeling for us.’ It is apsychological thing.


While most of the male gang members are reticent to speak about the ‘lack of love’ in their homes,this perspective is echoed in the words of the one female gang member interviewed:

For instance if I myself, if my mother then showed me the love and affection I wantedand my father, if he showed me that he loved me, cared for me, I would never havegone to look for love outside. I went outside to look for love and look where did loveend up for me. Gangsters don’t need to be on the road, it’s the parents.

She went on to say, “The parents, the father smokes, the mother drinks, the baby cries, mother isdrunk, father is in the earth, there’s just no love in the houses.”

By “smokes,” she later clarified that she meant that the father smokes Mandrax.

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An additional common factor is clearly housing. While household size varied among the gangmembers interviewed, the average of eight family members in two to three bedrooms representsconsiderable cramping. The victim survey showed two bedroom flats housing as many as 18 people.

“People sleep in shifts,” according to an elder community member in Manenberg.

Because rent in the Cape Town area is not affordable for most people – especially those living offgovernment pensions or other state entitlements, or making a living through occasional labour ortrading – the alternative to living in Manenberg would be squatting. For most coloured people, thisis not an option. As a result, as families grow, so does population density, and the housing is notgenerally amenable to expansion. Ground floor flats and houses may have small yards, but theseare often filled with shacks to house family members or tenants.

An elder community member in Manenberg said, “If I have a house and my sister doesn’t have ahouse – I let her live in my yard in a Wendy house.”

A ‘Wendy house’ is a prefabricated shed, generally intended for storage or, as the name suggests,as a playhouse for children.

Thus, young people find crowded and dysfunctional homes less cordial than the street corners, andon these corners find other children with similar problems. In the victim survey, 68% of those polledsaid they thought children should be allowed to play unsupervised on the street at the age of 12 orless, and a quick glance around Manenberg shows that this belief is being put into practice.Everyone who has looked at the problem has traced the source of coloured gangsterism back tothe street corner kids. When children spend more time on the street than in the home, the norms ofthe street become more important than the norms of the family. And the norms of the street areoften reminiscent of the Lord of the Flies.

Population stabilityIn a large number of international studies, population stability has been found to be correlatedwith low crime levels.29 The theory is that most crime is prevented through aversion to informal,rather than state, sanctions, and that criminals are unlikely to commit crimes in areas where theyare likely to be identified. In addition, community cohesion is thought to provide some degree ofmutual protection in that neighbours make protecting each other’s persons and property a priority.30

In Manenberg, this effect may have ironically promoted the incidence of gangsterism. Accordingto the victim survey, 88% of households polled had been in their present residence for more thanfive years, and fieldworkers reported most had been there in excess of 20 years. Since youth fromone area would have a hard time victimising their neighbours, they are compelled to migrate toadjacent neighbourhoods in order to commit their crime. As will be discussed in the section “Processof Involvement”, the gang members interviewed repeatedly cited protection from gang membersof other areas as one of their prime motivators for joining a gang.

29 Lee Ellis and Anthony Walsh (2000) Criminology: A global perspective. Needham Heights, Allyn and Bacon. Pp. 147-148.30 Ibid

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Social exclusionThe coloured community under apartheid was placed over the black community, and was given preferencefor certain types of jobs while being excluded from others. With democracy all this fell away, and, in theviews of many, little came in its place. This continued marginalisation and exclusion from opportunitieshas been felt even more intensely since democracy has failed to deliver on some of its promises. Accordingto the victim survey, 53% of respondents felt the apartheid government ran the country better than thepresent one, while only a third felt the democratic government to be better.

One of the key reasons for this is unemployment, and particularly the lack of job opportunities for youngpeople out of school. According to Stats SA, unemployment among coloured people has increased from23% in 1995 to 30% in 2001: an increase of 35%.31 In the victim survey, over half of the 16 to 24 year oldsreported being unemployed. The gang members tied unemployment to violence:

You get up in the morning – look through the window – no job in sight – the people in thehouse get angry because you don’t have a job. You have been looking for one but can’tfind one. They work on your nerves and you throw stuff around.


There is bitterness over the application of affirmative action. Formally, affirmative action is intended tofavour all formerly disadvantaged groups, but among victim survey respondents, 71% felt that affirmativeaction was being applied improperly. One elder community member in Manenberg put it quite simply:“The black man gets the work.”

Perhaps as a result, there is little hope that investment in education will result in an increase in livingstandard, and this may explain the lower levels of tertiary enrolment in the coloured community. “Yousend a child to school every year, but what assurance do you have?” asks another elder from Manenberg.“You pay till matric [secondary school complete] – you’ve wasted your money, because they can’t findjobs.”

Some of the gang members interviewed had had some minor employment, but none of it lasted morethan a year and all of it was unskilled or semi-skilled. Gang members often defiantly claim that they havetaken on crime as a job by choice. “We don’t want to work like other people do,” according to a junior HLgang member in Manenburg. “We don’t want to work for other people, for the white man.”

In short, there is nothing like unemployment to make one feel left out of the business of society. Whetherjustified or not, the feeling of being excluded from job opportunities due to race appears to be prevalent.Coloured people, previously elevated over blacks, are today effectively subject to them, and unlike thewealthier Indians and whites, they are unable to compensate for declining numbers of jobs through otherbusiness opportunities. In what Cohen has termed “reaction formation,”32 marginalised youths may invertmainstream norms. For example, employment is generally valued in mainstream culture, but since thisgoal does not seem attainable in some youth subcultures, marginalised youths may celebrate theirindependence from regular labour. This rhetoric proves to be a bit thin when probed, however, and manyof the gang members interviewed said they would leave the gang if they found a job (see “Future Prospects”below).

31 Stats SA (2002), “Unemployment in South Africa”. Pretoria: Government Printers32 Cohen, Albert K. (1955), “Delinquent boys: The culture of the gang”. New York: The Free Press.

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Process of InvolvementThe previous section suggested some of the social background factors that feed into a community-wide susceptibilityto gangsterism. This section looks at the individual incentives for joining a gang, and the mechanics of initiation.

The opinions of the young people interviewed in the school survey reflected strong incentives to join gangs. Foryoung men, there are few incentives more powerful than sex, and 86% of school youth polled said girls areattracted to gang members: 88% of the boys and 84% of the girls.

This view was reflected in the focus group interviews with community youth. “If they hear you go out with agangster – you feel cool and they won’t mess with you,” according to a young female from Manenberg. “If youare in a gang you get girls easier,” said another. “Now I also want a girl – I see it is easier for me to go in a gangthan it is to go easy.”

The gang members themselves did not mention this as a reason for joining a gang.

Aside from sex, money is another potent motivator, especially in a community as impoverished as Manenberg:79% of the school respondents said they believe that gang members make a lot of money. Gang membersinitially referred to gang membership as a job and claimed to be paid R1000 a month (less than US$150) as asalary. More detailed probing revealed that this ‘salary’ was only paid during times when there was specific gangwork to be done on a daily basis, such as during a gang conflict. While higher-up gang leaders are notorious fortheir wealth, the foot soldiers do not seem to benefit in the same way, particularly if they are not involved in anincome-generating activity, like drug sales. As one 26 argued, “The operators – it is the big guys that bring in themoney.”

Girls seemed to hold more illusions about the power and attractiveness of gangs. Far more girls (47%) than boys(40%) agreed with the statement “gang members are respected in the community”. These levels are much higherthan those found in the victim survey, where only 14% agreed that gang members are respected. Some of thegang members interviewed did mention the quest for respect as one of the incentives for joining and participatingin the gang. As the girl gangster interviewed explained:

You have to defend your banner, the existence of your gang, so I was the leader of the gang, I hadto stand for my whole members of the gang, I had to produce and everything.

As was discussed previously, in the “Community Relations” section, it would appear that engagement with thegangs is, for the most part, voluntary. There would seem to be enough volunteers to avoid the necessity ofconscription. While one gang member interviewed claimed to have been forced into joining, as a rule the gangsoperate more subtly than this. In the school survey, fewer boys (36%) than girls (46%) believed that young peoplehad to join gangs to avoid becoming the targets of gangs, and the boys are in a better position to know. Table 2looks at individual reasons given for joining gangs.

Table 2: Reasons given for joining gang

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Scanning the above, it’s clear that the bulk of members interviewed joined the gang for defensive reasons,including revenge, with two of the more aggressive members citing school gang membership. School gangstend to be cohorts of friends who apply a name to their group and compete against other similar cohorts, sothe friendship precedes any formal gang membership: “The one friend became a gangster and then hisfriend became a gangster, as they grew up,” said a junior HL gang member in Manenberg.

The defensive motivation was well-illustrated by one youth interviewed:

You are not a gangster but you know gangsters. They tell you, ‘If anyone messes with youthen you just come and call us.’ Now you come – he messes with me and I call them and I goto him, ‘You told me that I can come to you for help and all this.’ He is a gangster – now theygo to him and it is a whole fight. When the fight is over they tell me, ‘We stood up for you’,now you must go with him. That is how it starts.

And Manenberg is an area where young men are likely to be “messed with”. Himmie was stabbed twice asan assumed gang member before he joined to protect himself. The proliferation of guns means that whatwould be fistfights in a less well-armed community become fire-fights in Manenberg. As Rodney recounts:

I was with Christian. We were 14 years old then. That was the time when we threw stones. Isaw that wasn’t going to work, because we threw stones at them and they shot at us. So Idecided to get a gun too and shoot back as well. You shoot at me and therefore I will shootback at you.

The ‘arms race’ means that most young men feel the need to be armed. In the school survey, 17% of the boyssaid they had carried a gun for protection. Access to these guns was one motivation repeatedly expressed bythe gangs members for joining. Thus, the threat of gang violence forces more boys into gangs, which fuelsmore violence. Like those in a nation under attack, Manenberg boys line up to enlist.

The process of gang members offering favours or protection as a means of causing non-members to becomeindebted and dependent is paralleled in prison. Accounts of prisoners who were drawn into the numbersagree that the first approach is generally benevolent. New inmates are offered food, tobacco, cannabis, orprotection by weathered convicts. Only later do they learn that they are expected to reciprocate, usuallythrough sex.33

Another aspect of gang attraction was alluded to in the previous section: gangs perform the role of surrogatefamilies. The desire to belong to a larger group may become especially acute during adolescence, and thisdesire may have biological roots. Coalition formation is an adolescent behaviour observed in primates,and it has been described as being at the root of much male violence.34 Like many all-male societies, fromthe Boy Scouts to the military, gangs play on the masculine tendency to develop in-group culture and lore.As one Elsie’s River gang member argued with regard to learning sabela, the language of the gangs:

The kids want to interact with this code language because it makes them also important.They think that they are important when they start to understand and start to use the codes –whatever else. When they get engaged in these activities it makes them feel important. Thenthey become committed to – get drawn more and more into the process.

33 Gear, S and K Ngubeni (2003), “Daai Ding: Sex, sexual violence, and coercion in men’s prisons”. Johannesburg: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.34 Wrangham, R and D Peterson (1997), “Demonic males: Apes and the origins of human violence”. London: Bloomsbury.

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In addition to being the primary dealers of drugs in the townships, gang members are also the primaryconsumers.35 So addiction can be a very real factor in drawing members into the group and keepingthem there. While none of the gang members described themselves as addicts, they did describenumerous drug experiences, and at least one had clear Mandrax stains on the web of his hand. As oneManenberg HL said, referring to the gang ‘salary’, “Some people use all of their wages on drugs”.

Aside from physical dependence, the lifestyle itself has an addictive quality, especially when contrastedwith the aridity of daily life in the Cape Flats:

The kids get used to alcohol and drugs and smoking and stuff. In that way they startidentifying with the [gang] – so they are not necessarily forced, but … they slowly getinvolved. They get used to the kinds of drugs that are being used. When there is gangfighting or activity taking place – they want to show that they also want to be part of theaction.


Simple hunger can bring young people to the yards of gang leaders, who stand as oases of affluencein a desert of deprivation.

Another way of kids getting involved is they might not necessarily smoke or drink buttheir parents can’t afford to provide for them. So if they go to the yard of the gang leader– there will always be food and they assist with selling the new designer drugs or whateveris sold at that particular place. They get provided for. They can ride in nice cars and soon. In that way they are satisfied and they can support their family with some income. Ifthey want to, but mostly for themselves. They buy takkies – associate with the gang.Leading a good life.


Extended kinship structures mean that neglected children may not have to look far to find the supportthey need:

You see some houses is like this – mother and father is drinking. Mother is at home andfather is working. During the day mother is cooking the food and mother is drinking.Tonight daddy is coming home and he is also a little bit tipsy. Now an argument occursbetween the two of them, because both of them are drunk. The husband wants to knowwhy are you drunk and the wife wants to know why are you drunk? Now the child is in themiddle. He doesn’t know what goes on. He doesn’t get any love from the parents. Hedon’t get any learning – he just hear every night swear words. Then he reckon, ‘I will goout.’ Uncle Sydney’s house is all right. Uncle Sydney is a big gangster, but uncle Sydneyis all right. I can always get a slice of bread there. ‘Go to the shop for me,’ – now I amgetting into that.


So while motivations may initially be defensive, the gang does offer hospitality that may be foundnowhere else, including in the home. Like Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, the Cape Flats youth have found a wayof providing for themselves.

35 Standing, A (2003), “The social contradictions of organised crime on the Cape Flats”. ISS Paper No 74. Pretoria: ISS.

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The process of initiation seems to differ between gangs. The Manenberg HLs interviewed described a ratherinformal admissions process, during which the potential new member was questioned by higher-ups about hiswillingness to betray the gang. Once accepted, the member was armed immediately, and expected to fight atthe front lines in order to prove himself. One gang member said he was armed even before he joined, becauseof his stated intent to kill rival gangsters. The looseness of this process may be due to the need for new membersin the HLs.

The 26 Americans in Elsie’s River seem to have an extended period of observation and mentorship before fullmembership is granted.

First you must be a soldier. First you must learn the rules from the Americans. You mustn’t talkout. You mustn’t speak with other people. If you speak then you must speak in his language.Not in language that I can hear you. Then he is speaking his code language. ‘Salute’, ‘horsh’and things like that. After that – they make you a mark. They make you a tattoo – that I can seeyour heart is right. You can stand … if you haven’t got a chappie then your heart says, ‘No, I amscared’.

- Senior Elsie’s River 26 American

However, other members suggested that deployment may be immediate:

As soon as he has his chappie he has to do whatever they plan in the camp. He will get acommand and he has to do what is said to him. They will send him out.

Once you have your mark you must carry out the instructions of the camp – of the groupoutside and the orders of the group and if you don’t participate then you can be punished foryour non-participation.

Once inside, it can be extremely difficult to get out. The Manenberg Hard Livings interviewed said memberscould leave voluntarily so long as they did not join another gang. Those who wanted to work regular jobs butdid not renounce gang membership would be expected to share their wealth with their gang brothers, however.

A senior Elsie’s River 26 Americans gang member had a different view, “You can never leave. If you leave youdie. That is the dead end.”

This position may be linked to their affiliation with numbers gang membership, which is seen as a permanentalignment. The 26s went on to explain that members who wanted to work jobs could do so but that they wouldbe required to pay ‘protection money’ to the gang. Failure to do so would result in the gang withdrawingprotection, leaving the working member vulnerable to revenge killing by the opposing gangs.

The process of tattooing also locks members in for life. The purpose of the ‘chappies’ is to indelibly mark theindividual as a gang member and as a member of a specific faction. Community members are very familiarwith gang tattoos, and it can be difficult to get a job or maintain any semblance of a mainstream life oncemarked as a gang member. One 26 illustrated the limitations of bearing ‘chappies’:

If you have stress – you have five children – and you are a gangster – you cannot walk anywhere.By Epping you will go to look for work there – there are 28 gangs – you can’t go there. You goby Bellville – there are also 28s. Round the Western Cape are 26, 27 and 28. If you have amark and if you walk in the wrong place, then you die without speaking. Only for that mark onyour body.


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In prison, being heavily tattooed further signifies a rejection of life outside prison walls and acommitment to life inside. Those who do not want to be released are immeasurably more powerfulthan those who hope for freedom, because they can act with impunity.

Current InvolvementThe Manenberg HLs interviewed all described themselves as ‘soldiers’ or ‘hit men’ (laksman). Theirgreatest challenge seemed to be making ends meet and avoiding boredom. Since some of thewind had been taken from the HLs’ sails with the decline of the relative importance of the gang inthe area, perhaps due to a leadership crisis, they seemed to be responsible for organising theirown time, a task for which they were ill-equipped. As a junior HL gang member from Manenbergexplained, “We get up, wash - we stand on the corner.”

The youngest of the members interviewed, Himmie, was responsible for selling cannabis, but theothers appeared to be part of a general pool of soldiers presently unneeded. They were left to theirown devices. As discussed above, they initially claimed to be paid R1000 a month, but laterconceded that this payment was only for times of full-time engagement. At present, they seemed tohave been, for the most part, retrenched. If they were industrious enough to set up criminal activityof some sort, they would be equipped by the gang with guns, cars, and accomplices. Otherwisethey remained idle. When asked how they got by, they answered: “we go to other areas and burglethere,” or “we might do a small paint job somewhere” … “or clean someone’s yard.”

They also explained how they could go to other, more active, gang members when they neededmoney, such as the HLs dealing drugs in Seapoint (in the city of Cape Town proper).

Of course, they were expected to be on-call to defend the turf or the honour of the gang. They wereexpected to attend the weekly meetings and perform the Sunday visits to the prisons. Failure toabide by the rules and directives of the gang would result in discipline, usually physical, such asbeing publicly beaten at the weekly meeting.

The Elsie’s River 26s, on the other hand, seemed fully engaged in the drug trade, about which theywere not eager to talk.

Armed Violence

Getting started

The young men all explained that they were armed immediately upon joining the gang, and theirnarratives suggest that a major motivation for joining was to gain access to firearms. For most ofthem, this meant they began shooting at, and being shot at by, other people around the age of 13,sometimes even before they were formally admitted to the gang. In response to the question “howold do you have to be before you can become a soldier, before they can trust you with a gun?”, onegang members said, “everybody starts – doesn’t matter what the age is”. Another confirmed thisopinion, stating that “as soon as you are a gang member, because you are out there all the time.”

The degree of firearms training seems to vary quite a bit between groups and between individuals.One of the Manenberg interview subjects claimed to have trained another one, while others saidthey received no training. They said they read library books to learn more about the guns they hadbeen issued. The 26 Americans, though, claimed to have been formally trained shooting atmannequins.

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For the Manenberg HLs, the guns were the property of the gang, on loan to the members for use ingang activities and other crime. They had to be signed for, and loss of a weapon had harshconsequences. The central stash of firearms was shifted from safe house to safe house to avoid detectionby the police. As one member recalled, “It is a bag this high – full of guns.”

Asking about favourite guns elicits a flood of knowledgeable chatter. Semi-automatic 9mm and .44calibre pistols are preferred, with extended magazines (‘16 shooters’). Glocks were mentioned as aglamour gun. While the members claimed that fully automatic weapons were available, they werenot preferred because of their bulk and because they cannot be easily concealed. An additionalfactor may be cultural: the role models of the gangsters are American movie characters who usehandguns, not military weapons. One Manenberg HL described what happened when he was offereda grenade:

I was standing there and a guy came to me with a bomb. He wanted to throw it in ahouse – I told him not to be stupid – he should throw it in an empty field.

The Manenberg HLs described a technique in which three gunmen fire rapidly in sequence, with eachreloading as the other takes over, to imitate full auto fire. This technique was used during drive-bysand other attacks on homes.

Female gang members confine themselves to stabbing one another, as Faroes, who was trained infirearms use by her boyfriend, explained:

Yes, we only carry knives, maybe we’ll have brick gang fights and backpacks gangfights and knife gang fights, but we never went to the limit of guns. Because a girl is notsupposed to wear a gun … I know how to use a gun, but I don’t have a heart to killsomebody … I stabbed them in a place where I knew I couldn’t kill them … Because Iwas learned that as well, you never try to kill a person, you always try to avoid to kill aperson.

Getting shotWhen the gang members were asked “how many people do you know that have been shot?,” theanswer was a hyperbolic “more than 100 people.” All but one of the gang members interviewed hadbeen shot at least once, some multiple times. When asked about these experiences, shirts get pulledup and stories roll.

One focus group member who did not participate in one-on-one interviews had been shot in thehead and presently suffers from difficulties speaking and walking. Rodney had lost his employmentas a roofer after nearly a year on the job when he was shot by rival Americans. The bullet entered hisabdomen and exited through his buttock. He has a long abdominal surgical scar to prove it. Bekkieswas shot in the abdomen. Himmie has been shot twice in his 17 years: once in his abdomen andonce in the finger, nearly losing the latter. Chris has only been grazed once, but then he has beenactive in gun violence for the shortest period of time. Boobie, at 24, has been shot three times, in theabdomen (with attendant surgical scar), in the shin, and someplace else. Faroes has been shot twice,stabbed, gang raped to the point of causing internal damage, hit on the head with a pipe, andbeaten on multiple occasions. Millie has also been shot, leaving only Tante, probably the most violentof the gangsters interviewed, as the only one untouched. This may be due in part to the fact that hehas spent seven of his 26 years in prison.

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Shooting othersThe youngest members are expected to prove themselves on the “field of battle”, as the gangstersdescribe it. Respect can only be gained through the taking of blood. In open combat, the youngestmembers are deployed to the front lines, and so are exposed to lethal violence at a very young age.“I was 13 when I shot my first man – he was innocent,” recounted a junior HL member in Manenberg.“He was on his way to report to the enemy – so I shot him. He was fat.”

Not all gang members interviewed were asked if they had ever shot anyone else. Depending on theevaluation of the interviewer, some were deemed too sensitive to be asked about what was surely apainful experience. Only the two toughest gave detailed narratives about the experience of killinganother human being.

Bekkies witnessed his brother being shot to death by members of his own gang at the age of nine,and his family had to flee the area of Pontyville to Manenberg in order to avoid further repercussions.He joined the HLs at the age of 13 to get a gun to extract revenge. The two men who killed his brotherwere jailed, but he managed to kill one of their brothers. Now he says he shoots for the legs in agunfight, attempting only to wound or cripple rival gangsters. If told to kill by a senior gangster, hesays he will question the reasons why the victim must die. He says senior gang members often finishoff the wounded left by the kids in the front lines.

Tante recalled graphically the many deaths he has caused, including killing four 28s in the last gangwar in the area. He is currently being charged after cutting out another man’s eye. The man allegedlystole his cell phone.

Table 3 below summarises the number of times the gang members have been arrested and the numberof times they have been shot.

Going to prisonRodney said he has been incarcerated on four occasions. The first was an attempted murder chargethat he said was actually someone else’s crime. He lied about his age in order to get into adultprison, because he said the juvenile facilities are more dangerous. He said this is because, beingunderage, the kids can do anything they like in custody and get away with it. The case was eventuallywithdrawn. The second, third, and fourth times were multiple arrests for shooting a guy in the legs ina shebeen, a punishment for informing on the gang, a crime he admits he committed.

Bekkies has spent two terms in prison: two and a half years for theft and six months on a robbery ofcell phone case that was withdrawn. Asked whether his gang could have saved him from spendingover two years in for theft, and he said yes, but that they will sometimes let members stay in to teachthem a lesson.

Himmie has served a few short prison terms. One was for attempted murder after he went to Belhar tohelp out HLs in a gang war there. The guy he was with shot a rival gangster from their car, and soHimmie also began shooting. The two hid their guns but were caught by police due to their clothing.The charge was later withdrawn after the rival gangster was approached and spoken to, so he onlyserved two bouts of six months and 1.5 months in the Bonnietown Reform School. He was also caughtwith stolen car speakers and so was arrested for car breaking, serving brief stints in Pollsmoor andWooster Reform School. He has also been arrested on a number of petty offences, such as publicdrunkenness and possession of cannabis, for which he received a fine.

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Chris has been incarcerated four times, for robbery, attempted murder, and attempted rape. He spent atotal of about two years in Pollsmoor on the attempted murder and has a five-year suspended sentencefor the attempted rape.

Boobie was jailed for two murders, three attempts, a rape, and possession of Mandrax. He served threeyears on one of the murders.

Millie spent one year and seven months in jail for armed robbery.

Tante served seven years of a 10-year sentence for attempted murder, armed robbery, possession of anunlicensed gun, and possession of ammunition. He is currently being charged because he cut out anotherman’s eye.

Table 3: Times shot and times jailed

Lord of the FliesThere was widespread consensus that the younger gangsters were more violent than their elders, and thatover the years gang involvement had become an increasingly violent activity. As one senior 26 Americangang member from Elsie’s River puts it, “Today the young kids overpower the old gangsters.” Accordingto an elder community member from Manenberg: “I used to be a gangster. This lady know me as well asthat man. I have never cursed any of them or their wives or children. I took care of them.”

Many respondents blame this on the media and popular culture.

The violence is coming from our youths. I was born in 1964. I was 26 or 27 years before Iheard a gun in my property where I stay. My son is now 14 years old. From one year old,growing up, he was brought up with guns. By the age of 7, children today know how toremove a magazine. Because many of the shops, the toy shops, they make toy guns likethis. Then they learn the kids – here is the safety. Here is the magnum. If the kid finds anygun he can use it. That is why the violence is coming in our community.


The proliferation of real guns is also blamed for the increasing violence.

People used to use knives. In the old days they only used pangas [large knife]. The violencechanged, because the technology changed. People see something and they follow it.

- Senior 26 American, Elsie’s Rive

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Ironically, many community members and even the older gang members themselves suggested that alack of violence was behind this outbreak – the decline of corporal punishment:

Children have rights now and the kids are using their rights in the wrong sense – in thesense that they say to their parents that they can’t hit them and so on and play on theirrights and also threaten the parents by saying – look – they threaten the parents as well. Sothe parents are helpless in the situation to really resolve the issues, because of the conditionswithin the family and in society.


It is like this – the teachers learn the children don’t let the big people abuse you. Now I amthe parent. You did something wrong, but now he say you are abusing me. Now the schoolhas welfare ladies and so. I am going to tell the welfare my mommy abused me or mydaddy abuse me, but they don’t know in what way. Now the police come and knock on thedoor. The child said you abused him. Now it is a court case. They don’t take your word –they are taking the child’s word.


Other elder community members are not allowed to enforce local norms.

Before – when we were kids you can’t walk with a cigarette in the street. If a big man orwoman comes by – he will give you a smack. You can’t go home and say ‘Aunty Posie hitme’. Then your father and mother is hitting you back. Now you see 10 year old childrenwalking with long cigarettes. It looks so stupid.


Teachers are no longer allowed to cane.

At school, the teachers are not allowed to hit the children anymore. Corporal punishmentis out. We lived through those years and it wasn’t something that the teacher was cruel –giving you a whack or two – it was keeping you in line. In those days you can’t go to yourparents and tell them ‘You know what teacher did to me today?’. Oh my word – that is thelast thing you must do. Your mother is not going to ask you what did teacher – you aregoing to hear it. Today even parents can’t beat their children. It is democracy. It is a badthing, because the parents are scared. The parents are scared to beat their children. Becausethe child will turn around and lay a charge against them.


While many advocated a return to corporal punishment, it would seem that their real concern is the lossof respect, community cohesion, and cultural norms that they see as attendant to the imposition of Westernnorms by the black government. Under apartheid, communities were encouraged to be culturallyconservative, but the revolution of democracy has opened everything up for debate, and the youth havebeen encouraged to engage in this debate. In this period of cultural ‘structural adjustment’, nostalgia fora past that probably never existed runs strong.

Future PerspectivesThe joys of gang membership have also declined, according to some, and many of the gang membersexpressed an interest in moving on. Three out of the eight gangsters interviewed said they did not want to,or could not, leave the gang, but the other five said they would leave if they could find a good job.According to the gangsters, employment is the answer – it does not appear that many of them are makingmuch money at gang work. As Boobie observed, “Being a gangster is not a benefit anymore.”

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Apparently, it paid more in the past. He said the top guys get all the money and guys at his level getnothing. This dip in gang momentum suggests an opportunity for targeted work programmes or possiblynational youth service. Expectations are not high – most were looking for trade-level jobs at the most.With their highest ‘salary’ being R1000 (or about US$150) a month, it should not be difficult to providemore attractive alternatives. Once the core of experienced gang members is eroded, recruitment of a newworkforce would be difficult for the higher-ups.

But neither of the 26 Americans expressed an interest in leaving, which may be due in part to their prisongang ethos and part to the fact that they appeared to be making more money.

All those who wanted to leave associated this with a move from the area. Since remaining in gang territorywould leave them exposed to extortion of protection money and/or retaliatory violence from rival gangmembers, a programme of resettlement associated with job opportunities could go a long way. If indeedthe problem lies with the pattern of dense and stable resettlement, spreading the population out a bitcould be of use. If, on the other hand, the issue is cultural, the promotion of assimilation could address thisissue.

Since in Manenberg money is not currently much of an incentive for staying involved, most of the HLswould probably opt for any alternative productive or entertaining activity. As one community membersuggested, “If they had TV games, they would stay inside.”

This suggestion is not as ridiculous as it sounds, as indolence on the street corners is tied by everyone tothe genesis of gangs. There would appear to be potential for sports and cultural alternatives to gangsterism,as many have argued. As Faroes suggests:

If the government had to come to our community, Manenberg, there’s so much talent in ourcommunity. Damn, I don’t want to brag or anything, but you must hear me sing and perform,then you will see there’s talent in Manenberg. Those gangsters they know how to dance, theycan play soccer, they’re good soccer stars, they can do anything, they can sing, they candance.

Older gangsters who had left the gangs argued that getting married and settling down was the answer:

Q: What happened to the nice time kids?A: We are getting old.Q: How come the gang didn’t continue on?A: We all got married. We got married. Because of our commitment, we left it.Q: The whole gang did that?A: The whole gang did it.

Again, while it sounds a bit unorthodox, marrying off dangerous men is a technique that has been triedwith some success. When the PLO wanted to de-commission Black September, a brigade that held hostagethe Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Games, because they were too dangerous to maintainduring peace time, they held a mixer and married them off. When they attempted to resurrect the unitwhen the political tide turned, none of the old members were interested anymore.

But while allowing old members to move on is one matter, reducing gang uptake is another. Making thegangs a less attractive alternative is about changing deep social conditions. Part of this drive must beabout addressing the issues of drugs and alcohol in the community. The loss of norms and respect aretied to drugs:

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It is different now. They don’t respect you. Because of the need to smoke – that is theirrespect – the drugs have changed that. The drugs have changed their attitude.


And there is little hope that drugs can be removed from the community:

There is one thing that won’t stop in Mannenburg. The crime will maybe stop – likeso-so – the drugs – that is the thing I think will never stop. There is always drugs.

- Community youth, Manenberg

But targeted treatment and rehabilitation, as well as prevention work in the schools, could paydividends in violence prevention in a number of ways:

• by reducing the profitability of drug markets and the incentives for associated competitiveviolence;

• by reducing violence associated with the dis-inhibitive effects of drugs and alcohol;• by reducing acquisitive crime perpetrated by addicts, in which violence may be used

instrumentally;• by reducing other market related forms of violence, such as violence associated with the

collection of debts or in retaliation for betrayal.

With regard to other forms of social crime prevention, one way to ensure a decline in the power ofgangs is to provide safety nets other than those used by gang members to lure new members in. Asone community member suggested:

The easiest way for us now is those little house shops. Now they give us bread tillFriday. Then Friday – we get a R3 bread – that is the cheapest. Whole week I amtaking a R3 bread and at the end of the week I must see that I get the R30 to pay thatpeople back. For next week again. So that help us not to go to the gangsters to askthem. The little houses shops are supplying us with food.


Thus, efforts to make Manenberg and other Cape Flats communities more socially and economicallysound could make them more resilient to shocks and better able to collectively resist the temptationsof gangsterism.

III. SOCIAL PROGRAMMES TARGETING COAV

South African Public PolicySouth Africa has no national policy on gang or youth violence issues. It does have a NationalCrime Prevention Strategy (NCPS), issued in 1996. This policy document prioritises ‘violenceassociated with inter-group conflict,’ but quite pointedly does not make reference to gang issues,discussing instead political violence and conflict related to the informal minibus taxi industry. Italso prioritises “gender violence and crimes against children,” but the focus of this priority is clearlydomestic and sexual crimes. While child and youth involvement in organised armed violence couldfall under either heading, it seems that the issue was not sufficiently topical in 1996 to receivespecial recognition.

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In any case, the continued relevance of the NCPS today is questionable. Though the present governmentcontinues to cite the NCPS as though it is active policy, there has been a change in political administrationssince the time it was issued, and a consequent shift to a more law enforcement-based approach to the nationalcrime problem. Many of the recommendations of the NCPS (and the subsequent White Paper on Safety andSecurity of 1998) have never been given much attention,36 and after the 1999 elections the body that createdthe strategy was dramatically downsized and sidelined.

On the youth side, a National Youth Commission was established in the office of the Presidency in 1996 andtasked with creating a National Youth Policy. The outputs of this agency have been minimal, however, and theNational Youth Policy has not yet been produced. It is therefore not clear whether youth participation in organisedarmed violence will be discussed in the final product.

An innovative Child Justice Bill is set to be passed by Parliament in the near future, and this document probablyrepresents most fairly the government’s work in tackling this issue. This bill, which has been in development formany years, makes provision for diversion for youthful offenders, among other things. As a piece of legislationthat has not yet been passed, however, the impact this law will have on youth violence remains to be seen.

As a result of this policy vacuum, the burden of dealing with the issue of gangs and youth violence has beenshifted to civil society. There are presently a number of NGOs and volunteer forums that work in the areas ofcommunity conflict mediation, child justice, rehabilitation, offender reintegration, and related areas, oftenfunded by foreign donors and mostly working in relative isolation. These efforts will be discussed in more detailbelow in the “Best Practice Case Studies” section.

Best Practice Case StudiesGiven the diversity of relevant options, it is difficult to select the most relevant ‘better practice’ exemplars fromSouth Africa for international comparison. In addition, South Africa has been host to myriad foreign–funded,acronym-sporting, ‘pilot’ interventions aimed at the country’s notorious violence problem over the years, manyof which claimed remarkable successes, according to unpublished internal evaluations, but which nonethelessdied when funding dried up. The selection of case studies was therefore based less on any kind of objectiveassessment of absolute quality than on durability, scale, and accessibility of credible indicators of success. Thefollowing case studies are based on the external evaluator’s reports.

Case study 1: National Peace Accord Trust ‘Ecotherapy’The National Peace Accord was an agreement spearheaded by faith-based organisations to promote peaceduring the time of political transition. It was signed on 14 September 2001 by many of the major role-playersin the transition, including political structures, security forces, and commercial and labour interests. Around thisagreement support structures developed, which eventually resulted in the creation of the National Peace AccordTrust (NPAT), an organisation dedicated to addressing the psycho-social costs of the struggle for democracy.

‘Ecotherapy’ facilitation is one of eight programmes in which NPAT trains Restorative Community Workers(RCWs). It was originally designed to promote the psycho-social healing of former combatants in the strugglefor democracy. These militarised youth were exposed to, and participated in, high levels of violence before1994, but had been largely neglected since then. They were the classic de-commissioned child soldiers,trying to cope with the challenges of life after war, often through crime and substance abuse.

36 At the peak of its powers, the NCPS was seen as one of six pillars of the National Growth and Development Strategy, a far-sighted move that recognised the vital role safety plays indevelopment. But in the end, short-range thinking won out, the Growth and Development Strategy was shelved in favour of the Growth, Employment, and Redistribution Strategy (GEAR),and, with the possible exception of victim support, most of social programmes envisaged by the NCPS never came to fruition. Today it requires considerable imagination to see the connectionbetween current police practice and the ideas advanced in the NCPS.

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This work is rooted in mental health methodologies rather than criminal rehabilitation. It issuperficially similar to other wilderness-encounter programmes found in South Africa (such as DonPinnock’s rites of passage work) and elsewhere, but contrary to many of these efforts, it uses theoutdoors primarily as a setting for reflection, rather than as an obstacle course. NPAT defines‘ecotherapy’ as “…an individual urban dweller or group venturing into wilderness with the intentionof insight, growth and healing.”

The outdoors offers a dramatic change in setting for urban-based youth, which could provide anopportunity for thinking outside the box, and for de-contextualised analysis of the self. Whileecotherapy involves group work, it also contains periods of solitude. It is not considered a completeintervention in itself, but rather provides an opening for other, more sustained, forms of therapyand assistance to take root. It is seen as applicable to both perpetrators of violence and theirvictims. Groups are sometimes comprised of both well-adjusted and troubled youth.

Participants are generally part of a pre-existing group receiving services from another organisation,of a similar age cohort. Groups may be between 12-20 participants, with young offender groupstending toward the lower end of this spectrum. Ages of participants range from as young as sevento the mid 20s, with most groups being comprised of participants of similar age. The ecotherapy‘trail’ runs from between three and 14 days. No two trails are exactly the same, and the setting andcontent are adapted to suit participants. In general, however, the young people are taken to nearbywilderness areas to camp and reflect on the course their lives have taken. Group therapy andindividual counselling take place in this context. Elements of symbolism and ritual are included,and a de-briefing is used to help participants make sense of the experience.

The ecotherapy trails have undergone several academic evaluations, most pointedly a study thatrelocated 125 former participants and came to the following findings:

• Participation in crime decreased from 83% of subjects before the trail to 19% at the time ofthe study.

• Overall, substance abuse decreased from 65% to 22%.• Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder decreased from 97% of subjects to 30%.• The number of subjects in permanent committed relationships increased from 49% to 70%.• While none of the participants were employed at the time of the trail, 72% had found part-

time, full-time, or self-employment.

Case study 2: Khulisa peer drug education and M.I.B. programmeThis case study combines two programmes of the same service provider, as neither completelysatisfies the desired criteria.

Khulisa is an independent non-governmental organisation aimed at the rehabilitation of youthfuloffenders. While they offer a range of services and programmes, only their Offender Drug PeerCounselling (ODPC) and Make it Better (MIB) programmes have been formally evaluated.

Since, as has been discussed above, drugs are strongly linked to child involvement in organisedarmed violence in South Africa, the ODPC intervention is relevant. Interview subjects suggestedthat they were first introduced to drugs in prison, as an antidote to boredom in these overcrowdedfacilities. The drugs are controlled by prison gangs, and use of drugs effectively locks the youngusers into the gang structures for life. Efforts to liberate young inmates from drug use could impacton the extent of their involvement in organised armed violence, both inside and outside prison.

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The problem with using ODPC as a case study as an example is that this programme was not tied specificallyto violence or to the coloured population group. But another of Khulisa’s offerings, the MIB programme, hasbeen piloted in the coloured gang area of Westbury, and so gives some insight into the problems of workingin this community.

ODPCThe vision of the Khulisa ODPC was to lay the groundwork for permanent rehabilitation facilities in prison.As with the NPAT, the means for achieving this lie in ‘training trainers’ by providing skills to peer drug educators.The idea is that these people will eventually drive their own programmes, achieving the non-governmentalEl Dorado of ‘sustainability’.

Between April and December 2002, 18 youth inmates graduated as Drug Peer Counsellors. By February2004, 12 remained, as three had dropped out and three had been transferred to other prisons. But anadditional 18 are presently being trained, in the hopes of reaching all youth offenders in the prison withdrug education and support groups. The initial group was drug tested once for cannabis, and only one outof 14 remaining at that time tested positive for the drug.

Their impact on the broader prison community is less clear. More than half of the medium security, section Bjuvenile inmates at Polesmoor prison are apparently involved in the programme, which includes drug lifeskills based on the 12-step approach (such as coping with drug associated relationships, making amendsfor past wrongs, and so forth), drama presentations, peer counselling, and support groups. A total of 471youth attended at least one of 260 support group sessions offered by the peer educators. The peer educatorsalso provided drug awareness presentations to over 900 school children that visited the prison on field trips.

The focus of the intervention, however, seems to be the counsellors themselves rather than the prison populationas a whole. Only two of the 12 remaining peer educators indicated that they were not happy to be drugtested. Of the combined peer educator and trainee group, 71% felt that it is possible to change drug use inprison, and 89% felt the support groups contributed to the lives of inmates in a positive way.

MIB WestburyIn July 2003, the Westbury MIB programme began training 19 peer educators – eight completed thistraining. The remaining educators felt this high drop out rate was due to a number of reasons, but theunderlying theme seemed to be that the work did not advance the financial interests of the participants.Among those that remained, the desire was expressed to remove the existing leadership. But one peereducator was so committed to the programme that he threatened to “take out” Khulisa if it “broke his heart”or “if they mess around with us.” One compared his dependency on the programme to that of his peers onthe street.

The training consisted of a leadership camp, morality development, public speaking instruction, training inconducting peer drug counselling, drama therapy, conflict resolution training, indigenous games, drumming,restorative justice training, and facilitation skills instruction. The remaining peer educators complained aboutthe indigenous games (perhaps because they did not reflect their own cultural background) and the failureto deliver promised training on financial management and HIV/Aids. They also felt some of those thatdropped out found the sessions ‘boring’.

As with the prison programme, the emphasis seems to be on impacting the lives of the peer educators morethan on measuring community impact. In terms of outputs, the programme claims to have reached 3,000people, though exactly how is unclear. The peer educators have worked in at least two primary schools, evenstanding in for teachers who were absent, despite the fact that some members have not finished high school.In both schools, their work was warmly regarded.

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As far as the remaining peer educators themselves are concerned, the programme has been extremelybeneficial, although they had a number of minor complaints. Their chief concern is making the programme‘sustainable’, i.e. finding long-term funding. Like their peers who left, these young people need to findpermanent paying jobs, and as Khulisa is not likely to facilitate this, they need to move on to other things.

Recommendations for Possible State InterventionsThere are a very wide range of possible state approaches to the issue of children and youth in organisedarmed violence. On the one hand, there are preventative programmes, and on the other there are reactiveefforts, both of which can be focused on the individual or on the community level. There are also palliativeprogrammes to deal with the harms caused by youth violence, such as victim assistance programmes.Some of these interventions are youth-specific, while others deal with the causes of violence or treatment ofoffenders more generally. Given the extreme youthfulness of the South African population and the increasedlikelihood of young people being involved in crime, any project aimed at addressing violence in this countryis likely to be a de facto youth programme.

On the prevention side, early intervention programmes for youth at risk could involve educational efforts,sports programmes, social work interventions, and even nutrition schemes. The national education policyitself, by increasing student retention and routing to vocational opportunities, could play a pivotal role.National fiscal policy is directly relevant insofar as it supports the creation of jobs, which allow passage intoresponsible adulthood. Finally, some credence must be given to crime prevention through law enforcement:the incapacitation of individual offenders and the disruption of markets that fuel violent conflict.

Where preventative efforts have failed, interventions both within the criminal justice system and at communitylevel can work toward future prevention. When children offend, it is essential that they be treated differentlythan adults. Diversion to non-custodial or treatment programmes can avoid the criminalising effect exposureto the correctional system can have. Outside of the system, youth involved in criminal activity, such as gangmembers, can be addressed without the coercive undertones of interventions after arrest. Finally, conflictmediation at the community level can address causes of violence and ongoing feuds.

It seems the primary problem with most interventions is that they deal with the symptoms, rather than thecauses, of violence. Most are highly focused on individuals, rather than circumstances under which theseindividuals operate. Individually focused programmes can produce impressive anecdotal results, but itwould take a lot of them to truly turn the tide. While a large segment of some communities could probablyuse some psychotherapy, providing individual or small group counselling sessions of whatever stripe is acostly way of chipping away at a mountain with a teaspoon.

There is surely some truth in the old saw that today’s victim is tomorrow’s perpetrator, but it is possible thattoo much of the effort is aimed at repairing damage already done, instead of changing the conditions thatare generating harm in the community. While there are numerous programmes directed at ‘youth at risk’rather than offenders, these are difficult to get right in areas where a sizable share of the young adult populationfits this description. And while peer education is an exciting possibility for multiplying efforts, the primaryconcern of most young people from troubled communities is finding paid employment, which means thatprogramme capacity is only sustained as long as its participants remain personally unfulfilled. Theseprogrammes are often marketed to the youth because they teach skills and serve as resume dressing, butthere is a limited market for paid peer educators, and once the kids catch on to this, they feel betrayed.

There is much scope for individual work in diversion, but the broader community requires urgent intervention.There seems to be a dearth of programmes aimed at transforming the social circumstances in which violencetakes place, and a tendency to think of such efforts as long range plans wedded to the broader goals ofsocial equity. This assumption, however well intended, is a polite way of relegating them to obscurity.

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Social crime prevention need not be a long-term project. There are ways of addressing the environment thatgenerates violence without first requiring that everyone first become educated, employed, and equal. This studyhas confirmed that there are a number of social factors that aggravate the violence that can be addressed in theshort to medium term in a way that will hopefully reduce the number of community members who need traumacounselling in the first place.

The first social factor is inadequate housing. People in the Cape Flats live piled on top of one another in decrepitbuildings that they don’t own, hidden away in communities far from the city centre. Access to job opportunities, aswell as things to do while unemployed, are restricted by this spatial separation, and the scope for starting a smallbusiness is limited when none of your neighbours have money to buy your stuff. It is little wonder that one of theprimary goals of the young people interviewed in Manenberg is ‘get out of Manenberg’. Rather than trying to winthem over to the task of uplifting the community, they should be assisted in attaining this goal.

Building houses takes time, of course, but South Africa has as one of its many development goals the redistributionof land and the provision of housing for all. Funds have already been allocated for this, but delivery has beenslow. Perhaps this could be speeded if priority were given to areas in social crisis, of which crime levels should beconsidered a prime indicator. If codes concerning the maximum capacity of council residences were enforced,the municipality would have huge numbers of displaced people to contend with. It is only by implicitly condoningconditions contrary to our own norms of health and safety that the present situation has been sustained as long asit has been.

In addition, much well located inner-city space is presently under-utilised because it is being used to houseprostitutes, drug-dealers, and illegal immigrants. This is less true in Cape Town than in other metro areas, butthere is still scope for either the national or local authorities to seize the offending property, either via rates andcodes violations or through the civil asset forfeiture legislation. These properties could be used to thin areas likeManenberg out a bit. Most importantly, the new residents would own the premises, and would have a stake inpreventing them from becoming hellholes. Re-sale opportunities in central Cape Town would provide massivefinancial incentives for upgrading.

The previous sections suggested that, ironically, the strong community cohesion in a place like Manenberg mightactually be generating gangsterism. One of the prototypical criteria for releasing an inmate on probation orparole has always been ‘strong community ties’. But those trying to reform themselves typically complain of thepressures exerted on them by old friends who remain on the wrong side of the law, and they stress how even theexpectations of the law abiding citizens seem to force them into the roles they have always held in the community.Perhaps the best way to uproot the entrenched conflicts is simply to scatter the combatants. So the lack of inner-cityopportunities in Cape Town may not be a barrier after all.

The second social fact is unemployment. Gangsterism is, if nothing else, a way of killing time. Its blood feuds andbrotherhoods are infinitely more interesting than staring at the wallpaper, assuming you can see it past all yourcousins and aunties. And in a country with scarce jobs for low-skilled workers, the prospects become even moredismal when there is a wide spread impression that people of your ethnic group are being systematicallydiscriminated against in the name of repairing past injustices, of which your people were also a victim. Thisburden impacts even on the youngest gang members, who may see little point in staying in school when this haslittle chance of paying off in terms of employment, and who may ‘dis-invest’ in a social system where they feel theirinterests are not accommodated.

Generating jobs is arguably the number one project of the government at present, so it is not as though thismatter is not receiving attention. And admittedly, creating an economy that generates low-skill jobs is a tall orderin an open global market with rivals like China. But there are two distinct aspects to this problem that could beaddressed independently. One is not having any money, and one is not having anything to do when you wake upin the morning.

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Manenberg has a high drop out rate despite the fact that there is nothing to do once you drop out. Onefactor influencing this decision is surely school fees. While a child dropping out of school may not addanything to the family kitty, dropping out does remove a household expense. This incentive must beremoved. It is insane to pay kids to have children, and charge them to go to school. The free schoolingpromised at the time of the first national elections must finally be provided. And, insofar as it is possible,tertiary and vocational training aimed at generating needed job skills should be made an affordablealternative to robbery, burglary, and drug dealing.

It is not as though brains are lacking in this community. The Western Cape and the Northern Cape, withtheir coloured majorities, have the highest ‘matric’ pass rates in the country (although this is calculated asa percentage of those who take the exam, not of all students entering the school). The lack of colouredparticipation in tertiary education may be directly linked to the idea that the effort and expense maymean nothing in a market where they remain ‘not black enough’. This too must change, and the messagemust be communicated clearly: previously disadvantaged minority groups will be treated on a par withmembers of the majority that holds power. The alternative is continued apartheid.

Even where university does not result in a paying job, it does have the benefit of keeping young peopleoccupied and outside their home communities during one of the most dangerous times of their lives: the18-25 year period.Addressing the material needs of this community could be advanced considerably by waiving theridiculously small rentals paid on the flats that they occupy. The total revenue generated in renting thissubstandard accommodation must be trivially small compared to the pressure suffered by those trying togenerate a cash income while unemployed. For many, the government gives with one hand (via child caregrants and old age pensions) and takes with the other (via rents and utilities). Subtract out the administrativecosts, and what has the state actually gained?

The third social fact is the proliferation of guns and alcohol. While neither of these elements causesviolence, they certainly aggravate it. As material objects of licit commerce, guns and alcohol can beregulated, and their availability restricted. South Africa has what would strike many outside observers asa bizarre gun policy: licensed firearms can be carried concealed on the person of the owner. By simplyrestricting this right in certain violence-prone areas (without abridging the right to have a firearm in thehome), many heat-of-the-moment street shootings could be avoided. For example, a new national gunlaw called the Firearms Control Act makes a provision for the Minister of Safety and Security to declare tocertain premises – including schools, shebeens, government buildings, etc. – a Firearms Free Zone. It is acriminal offence to carry guns in a FFZ, punishable by five years in prison and 10 years in prison forallowing someone to enter a FFZ with a weapon (storing). Similarly, some basic enforcement on the saleand consumption of alcohol, as well as judicious zoning of licensed outlets, could make acquiring thedrug inconvenient enough to impact total consumption.

The above represent just a few possible interventions that could impact on the social conditions feedingviolence in the Cape Flats. These ideas are clearly in need of greater elaboration and research. But thecentral point remains: it is possible to address the conditions that feed community conflict without waitingfor utopian social transformation. Focusing instead on doctoring each damaged soul is a noble effort,but one that is unlikely to have lasting impact on the enduing problems.

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