Crime and perceptions after a decade of democracy

Crime has become central to any discussion about the consolidation of democracy in South Africa. Concerns about crime intensified in the years after 1994, as the country attempted to grapple with the apparent ‘crime wave’ that accompanied the transition. A decade later crime is still a priority for government and a concern among citizens, but the clamour that characterised both state and civil society responses in the early years of democracy has receded (See the article by the author in Social Indicators Research 41: 137–168, 1997). This may relate to the decrease in crime levels as reflected by various statistical sources. It is also possible that those whose voices were heard most loudly on the issue – the middle classes – have taken all available measures to protect their property and lives from crime. In all likelihood, South Africans have become accustomed to living in a violent society, and one in which other equally serious problems now require attention. Although the national obsession with crime has waned, the available data nevertheless indicate that the problem still affects many thousands of lives. The impact of crime – in terms of the costs of victimisation, negative perceptions and fear, and the cost of responding to crime – remains high for South African society. This paper considers how crime levels and perceptions about crime and safety have changed over the past decade, and what these trends tell us about the country 10 years into our democracy.     

Resilient or Resigned? Criminal Victimisation and Quality of Life in South Africa

A victimisation study conducted among 3300 householders in South Africa’s Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality (NMMM) in the Eastern Cape Province aimed to inform a crime prevention strategy for the metropolitan area. The study found that the variables ‘fear of crime’ – measured in terms of perceived likelihood of victimisation – and concern about ‘personal safety’ had greater negative influence on life satisfaction than actual victimisation. Individual crimes against the person had greater negative influence on subjective wellbeing and feelings of personal safety than property and other household crimes. Individuals who perceived themselves to be at risk of becoming a victim of crime also perceived greater risk of other misfortunes. However, materially better-off victims reported higher levels of life satisfaction than non-victims in spite of their crime experience. South Africa has high crime rates by international standards and fighting crime presents the country with one of its major challenges in the second decade of democracy. Nevertheless, findings suggest that the negative impact of crime issues on achieving the good life are overshadowed by issues of racial inequalities and poverty. The conclusion is drawn that residents of Nelson Mandela Metropole are hardy when it comes to living with crime but nonetheless suffer stress in doing so. From a methodological perspective, the discussion considers whether subjective crime issues such as fear of crime and personal safety should be regarded as personal or neighbourhood quality-of-life issues. Based on survey findings, the conclusion is drawn that concern for personal safety is both. However, a crime-as-neighbourhood-issue is more likely to attract remedial action on the part␣of␣local authorities to better protect citizens and allay their fears of crime.     

Prince George is Not (and never was) Canada’s Most Dangerous City: Using Police-Recorded Data for Comparison of Volume and Seriousness of Crimes

This article is based on the idea that crime should be analyzed in terms of both volume and seriousness. Crime rates are the most usual measure of the volume of criminality at a given time or a given place. Statistics Canada recently developed a Crime Severity Index to account for variations in the seriousness of police-recorded criminal infractions. A close look at its construction reveals that the Index is a weighted rate influenced by both the volume and the seriousness of recorded infractions. This article introduces a new indicator designed to measure the seriousness of recorded infractions. The measure is based on simple calculations and easy to interpret. It suggests that serious crime has decreased since the 1980s. It also suggests that city and province rankings based solely on crime rates are misleading because high levels of crime do not necessarily indicate high levels of the more serious crimes.     

Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington,D.C.: Results of the National Demonstration Project,June--July 1993

This paper reports the results of a prospective experiment in which a group of approximately 4,000 participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi assembled in Washington, D.C., from June 7 to July 30, 1993. It was hypothesized that levels of violent crime in the District of Columbia would fall substantially during the Demonstration Project, as a result of the group's effect of increasing coherence and reducing stress in the collective consciousness of the District. A 27-member Project Review Board comprising independent scientists and leading citizens approved the research protocol and monitored the research process. Weekly crime data was derived from database records provided by the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (DCMPD), which are used in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Statistical analysis considered the effect of weather variables, daylight, historical crime trends and annual patterns in the District of Columbia, as well as trends in neighboring cities. Consistent with previous research, levels of homicides, rapes and assaults (HRA crimes) correlated with average weekly temperature. Robberies approximately followed an annually recurring cycle. Time series analysis of 1993 data, controlling for temperature, showed that HRA crimes dropped significantly during the Demonstration Project, corresponding with increases in the size of the group; the maximum decrease was 23.3% (p < 2 × 10–9) [24.6% using a longer baseline, with 1988--1993 data (p < 3 × 10–5)], coincident with the peak number of participants in the group during the final week of the assembly. When the same period in each of the five previous years was examined, no significant decreases in HRA crimes were found. Robberies did not decrease significantly. However, a model that jointly estimated the effect of the Demonstration Project on both HRA crimes and robberies showed a significant reduction in violent crimes overall of 15.6% (p = 0.0008). Further analysis showed that the effect of the coherence-creating group on reducing HRA crimes could not be accounted for by additional police staffing. The time series analysis for HRA crimes gave results that are highly robust to alternative model specifications, and showed that the effect of the group size was cumulative and persisted after the Demonstration Project ended. Also, calculation of the steady state gain based on the time series model predicted that a permanent group of 4,000 coherence-creating experts in the District would have a long-term effect of reducing HRA crimes by 48%.     

Quality of Life and Perceptions of Crime in Saskatoon, Canada

This article investigates the relationship between crime and quality of life in Saskatoon, Canada. The city has one of the highest crime rates in the country and has been referred to as the ‘Crime Capital of Canada’, a label that comes as a surprise to many residents and causes considerable concern among others. The aim of this research is to penetrate beyond sensational news headlines and bald crime statistics. The paper evaluates how perceptions of crime and safety affect the quality of life of residents living in neighbourhoods of different socio-economic status and geographic location. Both quantitative and qualitative time series data is analyzed in a sample of neighbourhoods over the period 2001–2004–2007. The findings of the data analysis are interpreted with respect to issues relating to the fear of crime, avoidance behaviour, risk minimization, social cohesion and community building.     

Volatile Places,Volatile Times: Predicting Revolutionary Situations with Nations’ Governance and Fragility Indicators

In the last decade, Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America, has seen high poverty, inequality, and increasing homicide rates, which has led to widespread fear of crime. Two important challenges to understand the elevated levels of fear of crime are the lack of agreement on how to measure it and the debate on whether it responds to actual crime or to a general feeling of vulnerability associated with poverty. Moreover there is little research in Mexico examining the complex influence of social context at the municipality level, on the relationship between person-level characteristics and fear of crime. Using Mexico’s 2015 National Survey of Victimization the goal of the study is to estimate a two-level hierarchical regression analysis combining the effects of person-level predictors and municipality level context variables to explain fear of crime in Mexico´s urban population. Our results show that some person level attributes—victimization, incivilities, trust, police effectiveness, and collective organization—are consistently associated with the three domains of fear of crime: feelings of insecurity, perceptions of risk, and avoidance behaviors. The study shows that homicide rates at the municipality level are directly associated with feelings of insecurity and avoidance behaviors. In addition, high multidimensional poverty and inequality at the municipality level amplified the rate by which incivilities affect perceptions of risk. Unexpectedly, collective efficacy at the municipality level and collective organization to solve crime at the individual level were positive and significant predictors for fear of crime in Mexico.     

The Shape of South African Society and its Challenges

South Africa's negotiated settlement and its transition to democracy reads like a modern fairy tale. A brief review of South Africa's social indicators serves to temper some of optimism about the country's future. The indicators reflect the society's quality of life which has been shaped by its turbulent history. Political “caste formation”, changing political alliances, the reforms intended to forestall the demise of apartheid, and the race for global competitiveness have left indelible marks on the society's social indicators. A comparison of living conditions in South Africa with those of roughly comparable economies indicates that the country lags behind in securing overall and widespread socio-economic upgrading of the population at large. A review of a cross-section of South African indicators and their trends over time shows that South Africa is still a very deeply divided society with a very large backlog in socio-economic development. There is evidence of breakdown in the society's social cohesion. Popular expectations of future quality of life indicate that the euphoria following on the first democratic elections has been replaced by a sense of realism among all sectors of the population. It is concluded that quality of life as reflected in South Africa's social indicators may get worse before it improves. The challenge will be to avoid new forms of economic “apartheid” which would depress the quality of life of marginal sectors of the population at the expense of the economically privileged.     

Forschungsfeld geografische Kriminalstrukturanalyse

This paper introduces a research interface between urban sociology and criminology, which has experienced a tremendous development elsewhere, but has been neglected as an own scientific field of research in Austria. A ?Geographic crime-patterns analysis“ represents an interesting and germane discipline for both qualitative- and quantitative- oriented social scientists. With regard to comprehensive crime prevention the discussion about the ?future of crime control institutions“ does not only evolve around crime prevention techniques, but also and foremost addresses elaborated methods of crime analysis. A sociological analysis of crime builds on the grounds of criminalistics: Crime hot spots are correlated with socio-demographic and spatial data as social conditions of the lifeworld in order to elaborate a theory of crime-opportunities and finally to inform authorities concerned with public safety. Once the police has realised that they can only guarantee public safety in collaboration with social and housing authorities, they must also accept an approach for a comprehensive analysis of crime statistics with regard to social phenomena. This paper shall present the scientific potential of a geographic analysis of crime.     

Temporal Association,the Dynamics of Crime,and their Economic Determinants: A Time Series Econometric Model of South Africa

The paper examines the association between variouscrime series for South Africa and their economicdeterminants between 1960 and 1993. The study usesJohansen cointegration techniques to establish theimportance of income per capita (economicopportunities), police officers per capita, convictionrates (both of which proxy for the likelihood ofcriminal success whilst the latter also captures aninstitutional efficiency aspect), and politicalinstability (necessary to reflect the unique SouthAfrican environment during this time) on per capitacrime levels. The results caution previous studiesthat find a close relationship between the level ofeconomic activity and recorded crime. Previous workhas relied on the Engle-Granger technique assuming aunique cointegrating vector. Our results for SouthAfrica indicate that whilst total offences arenegatively associated with income per capita,disaggregated crime series do not always yieldcointegrating vectors. Some conclusions on the policyimplications also follow.     

Measuring Organised Crime Presence at the Municipal Level

Social Indicators Research - While indicators assessing the quality of life often comprise measures of crime or fear of crime, these components usually refer to property or violent crimes. More...     

Trauma and Mental Health in South Africa

Prior to the first democratic elections, South Africa had experienced severe political violence. In this paper, we describe the effects of this violence on mental health, concentrating mainly on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and its symptoms, including reliving aspects of the trauma, avoiding situations which remind one of the experience, and heightened irritability. As part of a nationwide survey on health inequalities covering 4000 South African households, questions were put to 3870 respondents aged 16 to 64 years on their mental health status, feelings of powerlessness, exposure to violence and other traumatic situations, symptoms of PTSD and access to health care for these symptoms. Weighted survey results indicate that approximately five million adults (23% of the population aged 16 to 64 years) had been exposed to one or more violent events, for example, being attacked, participating in violence and witnessing one's home being burnt. Just under four-fifths (78%) of those who had experienced at least one traumatic event had one or more symptoms of PTSD. This syndrome was found to be related to feelings of powerlessness, anxiety and depression and fair or poor self-ratings of emotional well-being. The authors concluded that healing the people of South Africa involves revealing the full extent of political violence that was committed during the apartheid era, confronting the effects of this violence, and establishing both professional and community structures to deal with it on a large scale, for example, the training of lay people to give counselling.     

Ethnic Diversity,Social Exclusion and Economic Determinants of Crimes: A Case Study of Pakistan

The eventual objective of social disciplines is to ensure the existence of peaceful and prosperous societies through the provision and protection of property rights for all segments of society. The deprived and socially excluded persons attempt to violate the formal rules and informal norms of the society. Developing countries have been facing rapidly increased number of violators of rules and norms, causing to higher crime rate which confronts multifarious ethnic problems, religion, multi-lingual problems. The case of Pakistan dose not varies when our study consider socioeconomic causes of crimes i.e. ethnic diversity and social exclusion. Present study is a contribution in this blistering issue, particularly in case of Pakistan. Therefore, our study explores the socioeconomic determinants of crime rate in Pakistan, by using bound testing and auto regressive distributive lag technique for the data period of 1970–2015. The estimated results reveal that ethnic diversity, social exclusion and deterrence have positive and significant impact on property, violence crime rates, and on overall crimes in Pakistan. While per capita income and population density, both have negative and significant impact on property and violence crimes.     

Victimization Among Female and Male Sexual Minority Status Groups: Evidence From the British Crime Survey 2007–2010

International surveys of victims show crime rates in England and Wales, including hate crimes, are among the highest in Europe. Nevertheless, sexual minority status is a less considered risk factor in general victimization research. This study used sexual minority status and sex to predict victimization across British Crime Surveys from 2007–2010. Logistic regression analyses showed sexual minority status groups were more likely than heterosexuals to be victimized from any and some specific crimes. However, bisexuals rather than lesbians or gay men were more consistently victimized, notably by sexual attacks and within the household. Implications for understanding victimization among these groups are discussed.     

The South African fertility decline: Evidence from two censuses and a Demographic and Health Survey

Inadequate data and apartheid policies have meant that, until recently, most demographers have not had the opportunity to investigate the level of, and trend in, the fertility of South African women. The 1996 South Africa Census and the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey provide the first widely available and nationally representative demographic data on South Africa since 1970. Using these data, this paper describes the South African fertility decline from 1955 to 1996. Having identified and adjusted for several errors in the 1996 Census data, the paper argues that total fertility at that time was 3.2 children per woman nationally, and 3.5 children per woman for African South Africans. These levels are lower than in any other sub-Saharan African country. We show also that fertility in South Africa has been falling since the 1960s. Thus, fertility transition predates the establishment of a family planning programme in the country in 1974.     

Monitoring Optimism in South Africa

The last two decades have been the most crucial and eventful ones in South Africa's history. During this time, the empirical research and knowledge provided by opinion polls yielded much-needed insight into the grass roots of a society in transition, providing an instrument with which to measure the political climate, to observe trends and developments, and to give input into the decision-making process of companies and political parties. Although the process of change and political transition still remains difficult to define properly, this article will provide some insight into the attitudes, perceptions and values of the South African public, by giving attention to trends that have transpired over the years. Special attention is devoted to perceptions on pertinent issues such as the mood in the country, optimism, economic well-being, social harmony and trust – all essential elements in an emerging democracy. Extensive use is made of data and findings of Markinor's bi-annual Socio-Political Trends surveys, the World Values Studies and the annual Gallup End-of-Year Poll.     

Crime and Crime Control

Social Indicators Research - This article provides an overall picture of crime and crime control in Korea over the past 30 years. By using official crime data, we examined general trends and...     

An exploratory analysis of select predictors of concern for law and order

Within the last decade concern for law and order has become a major domestic issue. Presidential candidates have campaigned on the issue. Opinion polls have charted the growing public concern. Crime statistics have reported startling growth in the number of serious crimes committed in the United States. This paper attempts to assess the ability of different variables to predict and explain this high concern. Two aspects of concern will be discussed: (1) awareness of and (2) willingness to do something about crime. Theoretically little is known about how awareness for a social problem can be translated into forms of action to deal with the perceived problem. Methodologically, a technique is needed for assessing the relative importance of different variables related to the problem area. Path analysis is discussed as a possible technique. The data was collected through a random sample of heads-of-households in the State of Washington during the summer of 1970 (N=3101; response rate=75%). Some of the major findings include: (1) people in larger cities are more aware of a crime problem than people in smaller cities and towns, but people in larger cities are less willing to allocate tax dollars to combat crime; (2) the size of city, and implicitly the crime rate, is the most important variable for understanding the public awareness of crime; (3) the elderly and those of conservative orientation are more willing to allocate funds to combat crime than the young and liberal, although there exists no difference in their awarencess of the problem; and (4) relative exposure to mass media, socio-economic status, or identification with one's community make little contribution to the understanding of either awareness of crime or willingness to allocate tax dollars to combat crime.     

South Africa's 'Rainbow People', National Pride and Happiness

Since the first free elections were held in April 1994, South Africans are popularly known as the 'rainbow people'. The paper inquires whether South Africans who experienced pride in their nation in the first years of democracy also perceived a greater sense of subjective well-being. It is proposed that national pride in post-apartheid South Africa might be fused with or work through self-esteem to lift levels of happiness. The paper traces the history of the new integrating civil religion of the rainbow people and the acceptance of the rainbow as a political symbol of unity among the diverse people of South Africa immediately after the 1994 elections and two years later. The proposed link between national pride and happiness was explored with data from two independent national surveys, the 1995 South African World Values Survey conducted by Markinor and a June 1996 MarkData syndicated omnibus survey. The study found that the appeal of the rainbow as political symbol was inclusive of all groups in society and that feelings of national pride and support for the rainbow ideal were positively associated with subjective well-being. As indicated by intensity and frequency measures, the majority of South Africans were proud of their country and could name a national achievement that inspired pride. Better-off South Africans tended to be happier and more satisfied with life but less proud, while the poor were less happy but fiercely proud of their country. Results suggest that belief in South Africa's 'rainbow nation' ideal may have assisted in boosting happiness during the transition to a stable democracy, thereby preventing alienation among the losers under the new political dispensation. Supporters of the ideal of the rainbow nation were more optimistic than others about the future of their country.     

Revolution,war and modernization: Population policy and fertility change in Iran

Fertility trends in Iran over recent decades can be plausibly related to a number of causal factors. Population policy shifts were quite marked, and were related to political upheaval and war, which influenced both official policy and popular perceptions of the nation’s need for children. A range of developmental factors were also important. The key fertility trends to be explained include the rise to an exceptionally high level in the early 1980s (a TFR of just below 7), and the speed of the subsequent decline to a TFR of about 2.7 in 1996. As well as estimating the proximate determinants of these trends, the paper sets them in their political and developmental context. Iran’s fertility trends are then compared with those of Islamic countries of North Africa and West Asia to gain additional insights into possible causal factors. An adequate explanation of fertility change in Iran needs to draw on elements of a number of theories of fertility transition.