Interferencia del Presidente en las libertades y derechos humanos

Historical factors have led to differentiation in terms of residential areas, class and access to services and resources as I illustrated in Chapter Five. These issues also contribute to the differentiated experiences of crime and reactions to community policing. Post-apartheid anxieties around race were implicated in my discussions of crime and community policing. Mbembe (2011) argues that democracies have not resolved the issue of race successfully which reminded me of the many instances when people talked about crime and articulated crime and policing in terms of racial issues. The same way in which crime was politicised occurred when crime was explained in terms of race as the people I encountered tried to explain the place they found themselves in. Racial typologies extended the understanding of crime as well as the presumed biases and fear of the other.

I noticed that issues of race and class were linked to access to security. The perceptions of community policing I came across among many whites revealed a sense in which being situated near non-white people posed a risk in terms of crime for them. Part of the ways in which race has always worked has been to segregate. One Die Boord resident told me:

Most people think criminals are black people. Whites have lost their sense of protection, they are more exposed to crime now and are not as comfortable as before. Many of them think of criminals as black people. They talk about crime and their insecurities at gatherings in both subjective and objective ways.

The above statement reminded me of an earlier interview I had with another resident who was nostalgic about the sense of security they used to enjoy as white people. He felt that years ago the police did their job better. He said that

a long time ago the police would patrol the streets and stop at your house for a cup of coffee. There was a relationship. I feel insecure now because I do not see the police patrolling as much as they used to.

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The space in which the debate on crime was carried out reflected some kind of racial profiling or the presumed face of crime that was defined as black without acknowledgement that not all black people were criminals. Bak and Askvik (2005:2) argue that ‘when people trust each other, they are willing to take risks and make themselves vulnerable in order to attain goods they could not get on their own.’ The ways in which talk about crime had racial innuendos and suspicion showed an element of distrust of one another. The result was absence of the element of dependence to assist each other in a situation of risk caused by crime. I was told by a resident in Kylemore:

Some people who are better off here do not want to integrate in community initiatives to make things better in this place because they think they do not need anything from anyone. However, we never stop knocking on their doors to tell them what is happening and take what they may contribute in the things we want to do for this place.

From comments that I noted from all races, there was a sense in which the element of social exclusion because of poverty made one more vulnerable to crime. On the other hand, class impacted on the ability to minimise risk because if one had the capital you had the means to make yourself safe and live a lifestyle that kept you away from crime by avoiding or participating in social spaces where there was a perceived risk of crime. You had a choice when you had money or a car, and you did not have to walk around when you came home late from work, you might choose to live in a security complex and there were security guards who made sure you were safe while you slept. Of course, there was no guarantee that you were totally safe, but risk was minimised because you had the means to protect yourself. The issues that were highlighted to me reflected ways in which the middle and upper classes were of the opinion that being in the affluent areas meant a lesser risk, less exposure to crime and more protection from private security. One’s class position determined what sort of alternatives were available in terms of one’s security.

Writers on crime mapping refer a lot to the geographical component of crime. The point here is that crime does have an inherent geographical component. In Chainey and Ratclifee’s view (2005:1):

When a crime happens, it happens at a place, with a geographical location. For someone to have committed a crime, they have also come from a place, for example home, work or school. Place therefore plays a vital role in understanding crime and how it may be tackled.

I introduced this issue in Chapter Five where I stressed that if one looked at the crimes in Kayamandi and Kylemore, there was surely a big relationship between crime, the environment and socio-economic characteristics. Relating crime to the environment and social economic characteristics was still strongly linked to how the rate and prevalence of crime were defined in many localities.

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