Gangs in South Africa

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The history of gangs in South Africa goes back to the Apartheid era.

Many South African gangs began, and still exist, in urban areas. This includes cities like Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg. Cape Town has between 90 and 130 gangs[1] with the South African Police Service stating a total estimated membership of 100,000.[2]

The gangs in the city of eThekwini are mostly known as 'sections' and 'hostels' because of their gang culture that dates back to the early 20th century. Unlike Cape Town and Johannesburg, sections and hostels do not fight for territory. It has remained like that for decades because of the geographic of the city.

History[]

Gangs rose to prominence in South Africa as a result of the Group Areas Act, which evicted “non-white” South Africans from their homes and resettled them in rural and underdeveloped areas far from urban and economic centres. This caused an increase in poverty and unemployment in Black and Coloured communities, most notably amongst those in the Cape Province (modern day Western Cape, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape) where Coloureds were and are still the largest racial group.[3][4] In the 1960s and 1970s, Coloured residents of Cape Town started forming gangs in the Cape Flats and other non-white areas. This is due to the breakdown of social control of the inner city, which caused severe unemployment, poverty and social marginalization. Former multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town, such as District Six, were either purged of unlawful residents or demolished.[4][5][6] In Johannesburg in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, many Black African communities were relocated and resettled, in Soweto in the Meadowlands and Diepkloof. Lenasia and Laudium became the hub of South Africa's most notorious yet secretive mafia family globally known as RFMO (Rasool Family Mafia Organisation) originally from Pietersburg (now Polokwane) sanctuary of the infamous SAMA (South African Mafia Association) founded by Goolam Rasool (aka Moonshie) in the early 1900s. Western Soweto complained of severe crime and juvenile delinquency during the 1960s.[7] In Durban the south of the city was mostly controlled by gangs from Umlazi, Lamontville, Durban CBD and Chatsworth. The section gangs were discovered in the early 1900s and hostels were built as early as 1912 but they started to take part in crime in the mid-1900s. Organizations like Glebelands Hostel, Crimson League, Umlazi Sections and Amadando came to rise after the Group Areas Act. The oldest gangs in South Africa date back to 1800s, based in the city of Durban.

By the early 1960s, gang violence had escalated, which was counteracted by more policing and patrolling of non-white areas.[4]

In 2013, 12% of the 2,580 murders in the Western Cape were gang-related, which was an 86% increase from 2012. Children as young as the age of 14 were arrested on gang-related murder charges.[8]

In 2019, 900 people have been murdered in the first half of the year in communities in the Cape Flats in the Western Cape.[9]

Typology[]

A large gang tag claiming control of the surrounding area for the Ugly Americans gang, a sub gang of the Americans gang, in Cape Town.

The Safety Lab has identified four distinct categories that Cape Town based gangs can be divided into: Street gangs, Crews, Cliques, and Prison gangs.[10]

Street gangs[]

The largest and best known gang type in Cape Town are the street gangs that are mostly associated with poorer Coloured communities.[10] They tend to have hierarchical command structures and are thought to derive most of their income from the illicit drug trade.[10] In Cape Town, the two largest gangs are The Americans and the Hard Livings, which function as umbrella organisations for many smaller gangs that are allied with the two super gangs. Smaller gangs in Cape Town that might be allied to one of the two larger umbrella gangs include Young Dixie Boys, Clever Kids, Naughty Boys, the Junky Funky Kids, Respectable Peacefuls, Wonder Kids, School Boys and Yuru Cats.[11]

Prison gangs[]

Main article: The Numbers Gang

Prison gangs in South Africa consist mostly of the Numbers Gangs discovered in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, a grouping of prison based gangs named after the different numbers they are named after; namely the 26s, 27s, and 28s.[10] These gangs tend to be highly structured with strong hierarchical command structures and high levels of organization.[10]

Sections and Hostels[]

A graffiti of 17 Hostel, one of the oldest crime organization based in Umlazi, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

Sections and hostels are mostly known as organizations that are composed mainly of the Zulu People from KwaZulu-Natal. Sections were discovered in the early 1900s but they started to gain popularity in 1910-1930s. They were usually formed by Zulu migrant workers who came to urban areas for work reasons. Hostels are similar to sections but their mostly political when it comes to crime and culture. Hostels are believed to be the founders of the 'Inkabi' movement and mostly consists of Amabhinca, while sections are the founders of 'iGinsa' which are mostly dominated by Olokishi. Some of the crime organizations in the province of KwaZulu-Natal started of as taxi companies but slowed jumped in to the sections and hostel world like the Gcaba Brothers, oGumede and Sithole Factions.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Dziewanski, Dariusz. "It's hard to leave a Cape Town gang. But these men's stories show that it's possible". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  2. ^ "Rising Cape Town Gang Violence Is Yet Another Legacy of Apartheid". Bloomberg.com. 2019-07-24. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  3. ^ Kaplan, Irving. Area Handbook for the Republic of South Africa (PDF). pp. 1–86. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  4. ^ a b c Rogers, Dennis; Hazan, Jennifer (August 2014). Global Gangs: Street Violence across the World. ISBN 978-1452941813.
  5. ^ Glaser, Clive (2000). Bo-tsotsi: The Youth Gangs of Soweto. p. 9. ISBN 0852556403.
  6. ^ "Recalling District Six". SouthAfrica.info. 19 August 2003.
  7. ^ Glaser, Clive (2000). Bo-tsotsi: The Youth Gangs of Soweto. p. 10. ISBN 0852556403.
  8. ^ "Fighting the gangs of South Africa's Western Cape". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  9. ^ Friedman, Barbara (15 July 2019). "We find connections between gangs in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban". CapeTalk 567AM. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  10. ^ a b c d e Roloff, Nathanial (May 2014). "Gang Typologies of the Western Cape" (PDF). safetylab.org. The Safety Lab. Retrieved 10 September 2019. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  11. ^ Salo, Elaine. "Mans is Ma Soe: Ganging practices in Manenberg, South Africa and the ideologies of masculinity, gender and generational relations" (PDF). Retrieved 10 September 2019.
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