crime and other societal threats in South Africa (safety, country, life)

[yofie]

Given that muggings, carjackings, home invasions, and rapes are all much more commonplace in South Africa than in developed countries (e.g. in North America or Europe), are any of the following crimes similarly much more commonplace in South Africa than in developed countries: Bank robberies? Domestic violence (among whites, blacks, and other races alike)? Thrill killings? Murders of innocents that are perpetrated by people who are angry from drug deals gone wrong (see, for example, this page)?

My guess is that it's basically just the muggings, carjackings, home invasions, and rapes that are quite worrisome to South Africans of all races more than to inhabitants of developed countries. It seems to me that when we talk about "crime" or "violent crime" affecting a place like South Africa or Brazil or Jamaica, we normally mean in the narrower sense of street/car/house robberies, rapes, etc. and not also in the wider sense of bank robberies, thrill killings, domestic violence, drug-related crime, hate crime, etc. Just like when we talk about "disease" as in, for example, that historically in wartime more people died of disease than in battle, or that settlement was inhibited by the prevalence of disease in a swampy area, we normally mean more narrowly infectious diseases than also diseases like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, etc. Or when we talk about "emotions" in the narrower sense, we mean sad or melodramatic emotions and not also happiness, anger, etc.

Also, here are some other questions:

1) How many people have any of you or your relatives/friends lost in South Africa to crime vs. to traffic accidents (which are also horrifyingly plentiful in that country, with a higher absolute number of victims)?

2) Do South Africans living in rural or wild areas (e.g. near Kruger National Park) regard human criminals or wild animals (e.g. lions, elephants, poisonous snakes) as the greater personal safety threat? How about those living deep in the Cape Peninsula - human criminals or baboons (which have a reputation of stealing food, often in the open)?

[yofie]

In the first paragraph, I forgot to put in crimes committed by people having mental illnesses like paranoid schizophrenia. But I imagine that such crimes, too, aren't necessarily more common in South Africa than in developed countries the way that muggings, carjackings, etc. are?

[todd00]

Robberies certainly are. Armored cars that pick up money from stores, robberies in mall shops have been on the rise (usually mobile phone and jewelry stores). Sadly, sometimes low paid security guards are killed trying to do their job. While many cops there are honest, there are some that have past records and are not honest. Many of the rapes are not reported. The system is broken, ya can't expect much if a poor person. If some soccer player or other celebrity then it's a different story. You can literally get away with murder if rich. That much is the same here.

As far as drugs read about Nyaope. The government has been very slow to do anything about this crisis. This low cost very addictive drug that may even have rat poison or other fillers in it continues to ravage the poor townships where unemployment is high and hope for a better life is low. It hasn't been classified as an illegal drug for some damn reason and still not sure if they finally got it classified as it should be. Slow reactions and don't care, that's Zuma's government.

Horrific traffic accidents, they go after the driver, often someone just following orders and in a ramshackle piece of junk truck that had equipment fail. The rich owner that didn't keep up his trucks that often employs illegals from neighboring countries (desperate for a job), and instructs them on how to get illegal documents to drive and on what routes to take to avoid traffic inspectors, sees no charges at all. The system throws the driver under the bus, and forgets about the owner. It's all a sad joke. Start throwing the owners in jail and confiscating their trucks and watch the change of behavior.

[dowsieboi]

Well here is the recent news:

Fears of serial killer loose in Cape Town | News24
Police arrest key gang in mall robberies | eNCA

If you want to see the stats for things like Drug related crime, assault, robbery etc.
Crime Stats SA - Crime Stats Simplified

1) Haven't lost anyone thankfully but I do have a lot of friends who have been held up while walking on the beach, tied up in their homes, mugged while driving. My old room mate got hijacked where they forced him to drive to Soweto, they took his wallet, phone etc and dropped him off there and drove off in his car.

2) This is going to be more opinion but my guess is the villages out in the rural parts are used to the animals and even then, you don't really hear of any of the Big 5 killing people. They're mainly all in the different reserves and rarely ever get out. The villages themselves probably have the odd bit of local crime but I imagine they'd be safer than the actual squatter camps. Most of the time, the people from the villages will move up to Jo'burg to get a job and send that money back to their families. This means the bulk of the crime would sit up there and less so in the rural areas.