Abandoned buildings as breeding ground for criminal activities: a case study of Libode Town under Nyandeni Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Baliwe, Mthuthuzeli Christopher
- Date: 2020-02
- Subjects: Abandoned buildings , Crime -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/19215 , vital:43032
- Description: Buildings and houses are neglected by their owners/ government for different reasons, but money tends to be the leading reason in most instances. That then needs minds to work hand in hand; owners of the buildings must co-partner with the government to reduce the crisis by ensuring that there are no abandoned buildings in the community as these have proved to be breeding ground for criminal activities. The study was conducted in Libode town, which is under Nyandeni Local municipality in the Eastern Cape. Around Libode town there are abandoned buildings that have not been used for years. In most cases criminals use these for their criminal activities and hide outs from the law. There have been multiple cases reported about crimes committed inside and around these buildings, and still no intervention from the local government has been instituted. The aim of this study was to explore the influence of abandoned buildings on criminal activities in Libode Town. The study used a qualitative design in data collection and in describing the results. A sample of 8 key informants, 10 members from Qhankqu and 10 members from Belmond Township formed participants of the study. These were selected using the Snowball sampling method. In-depth / one on one interviews were used to collect data from key informants and focus group interviews were used to interview two groups, one from Belmond and the other from Qhankqu. Data were analysed and drafted using thematic analysis and transcription. Interviews were recorded and notes were taken to collect data. Findings indicate that indeed abandoned buildings are the source of so many criminal activities as it was explained by the researcher that youth hangs on these buildings and formulate gangs. These gangs are utilised by drug dealers to distribute their merchandise. Findings also explained that these buildings are located on places which are dangerous and it motivates wrongdoers to even carry on their doings. Findings indicated that lack of attention to these buildings by the government and the relevant owners was the main factor that led criminals to utilise abandoned buildings for their wrongdoings. Findings further showed that the government failed to ensure that these buildings are checked at least twice a month in order to keep control on these buildings, causing criminals to target the abandoned buildings. The study recommends that SAPS and Nyandeni local municipality draft Laws/ restrictions for the use of these buildings so that if anyone wants to use these buildings they must follow these laws and restrictions, which will help to restrict criminal elements from using these buildings without permission. To solve the problem of criminals taking advantage of abandoned buildings, the study recommends, the buildings should be either destroyed or fixed. , Thesis (MSoc) -- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2020
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- Date Issued: 2020-02
Crime, violence and apartheid in selected works of Richard Wright and Athol Fugard: a study
- Authors: Makombe, Rodwell
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Apartheid in literature , Politics and literature -- South Africa , Race discrimination -- South Africa , Crime -- South Africa , Violence -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DLitt et Phil (English)
- Identifier: vital:11888 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/525 , Apartheid in literature , Politics and literature -- South Africa , Race discrimination -- South Africa , Crime -- South Africa , Violence -- South Africa
- Description: Different forms of racial segregation have been practiced in different countries the world over. However, the nature of South Africa‟s apartheid system, as it was practiced from 1948 until the dawn of the democratic dispensation in 1994, has been a subject of debate in South Africa and even beyond. Apartheid was a policy that was designed by the then ruling Nationalist Party for purposes of dividing and stratifying South Africa along racial lines - whites, blacks, coloureds and Asians. It thus promoted racial segregation and/or unequal stratification of society. In South Africa‟s hierarchy of apartheid, blacks, who constituted the majority of the population, were ironically the most destitute and segregated. Some historians believe that South Africa‟s racial policy was designed against the backdrop of Jim Crow, a similar system of racial discrimination which was instituted in the American South late in the 1890s through the 20th century. Jim Crow and apartheid are, in this study, considered as sides of the same coin; hence for the sake of convenience, the word apartheid is used to subsume Jim Crow. Although South Africa‟s apartheid system was influenced by different ideologies, for example German missiology as applied by the Dutch Reformed Church, historian Hermann Giliomee (2003: 373) insists that „the segregationist practice of the American South was particularly influential.‟ Given the ideological relationship between apartheid and Jim Crow, the present study investigates the interplay of compatibility between apartheid/Jim Crow and crime and violence as reflected in selected works of Richard Wright (African American novelist) and Athol Fugard (South African playwright). The aim of the study is firstly, to examine the works in order to analyse them as responses to apartheid and by extension colonial domination and secondly to investigate crime and violence. The three criminological theories selected for this study are strain theory (by Robert Merton), subculture theory (Edwin Sutherland) and labelling theory (Howard Becker). While criminological theory provides an empirical dimension to the study, postcolonial theory situates the study within a specified space, which is the postcolonial context. The postcolonial is, however understood, not as a demarcated historical space, but as a continuum, from the dawn of colonization to the unforeseeable future. Three postcolonial theorists have been identified for the purposes of this study. These are: Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha and Bill Ashcroft. Fanon‟s psychoanalysis of the colonized, Homi Bhabha‟s Third Space and hybridity as well as Ashcroft‟s postcolonial transformation are key concepts in understanding the different ways in which the colonized deal with the consequences of colonization. It has been suggested particularly in Edward Said‟s Orientalism (1978) that the discourse of orientalism creates the Oriental, as if Orientals were a passive object of the colonial adventure. This study uses Bhabha‟s and Ashcroft‟s theory of colonial discourse to argue that the colonized are not only objects of the colonial enterprise but also active participants in the process of opening survival spaces for self-realization. The various criminal activities that the colonized engage in (as represented in the selected works of Richard Wright and Athol Fugard) are in this study viewed as ways of inscribing their subjectivity within an exclusive colonial system.
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- Date Issued: 2011