South African Crime Quarterly

The June 2016 edition of the South African Crime Quarterly (No. 56), co-published by the Institute for Security Studies and the University of Cape Town, examines critical intersections of crime, justice, and social norms. The issue features research on the social barriers to policing domestic violence in Khayelitsha, the poor conditions within South African women's prisons, a methodology for measuring socioeconomic risk factors in high-murder areas, and the legal landscape of private prosecutions in Zimbabwe.

• In Khayelitsha, social norms and beliefs act as significant barriers to the reporting of domestic violence, as many residents view domestic abuse as a "private issue" and believe that involving the police is "unacceptable, or disloyal".
• Women in Khayelitsha often face pressure from in-laws to maintain family peace over their own well-being, and some internalize the belief that abuse is "normal" because previous generations of women endured it.
• Both men and women in Khayelitsha fear the social costs of reporting abuse; men specifically fear being seen as "weak" or "controlled by their women", while women fear gossip and a loss of status in the community.
• Conditions in South African women's prisons are reported as poor, characterized by overcrowding where some inmates are forced to sleep in corridors and a lack of privacy in bathrooms.
• Healthcare in some South African female correctional facilities is inadequate, leading inmates to use home-made remedies or buy antibiotics from other prisoners; some pregnant inmates reportedly received no medical care.
• A regression analysis of murder rates in South African police precincts indicates that higher murder rates are associated with more urban areas, higher proportions of informal housing, more renters, and a higher percentage of orphans.
• When analyzing the 10-year average murder rate across all police stations, the most significant predictors are higher population density and higher unemployment rates.
• In Zimbabwe, the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor-general is obliged to issue a certificate to a victim to institute a private prosecution if the victim demonstrates a "substantial and peculiar interest" in the case.
• The Zimbabwean government attempted to limit private prosecutions through the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Amendment Bill, which prohibits corporate bodies or associations from receiving certificates to prosecute.
• The Social Justice Coalition argues that the South African Police Service (SAPS) fails to equitably allocate resources to poor townships like Khayelitsha and lacks a national plan to address vigilantism.

APA

Institute for Security Studies (2016). South African Crime Quarterly. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/SACQ56.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Security Studies. South African Crime Quarterly. 2016. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/SACQ56.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Security Studies |title=South African Crime Quarterly |date=2016 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/SACQ56.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforsecuritystudies2016south, author = {{Institute for Security Studies}}, title = {{South African Crime Quarterly}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2016}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/SACQ56.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }