Chapter 6

Conclusion

Published in Monograph No 69, March 2002

Ted Leggett

Drugs and Crime in South Africa
A Study in Three Cities

This study has given an intriguing glance into a world in need of urgent attention: the world of the drug-motivated criminal. It has shown that this is not one world, but many worlds: sex workers trading their attentions for rocks, Cape gangsters warring over a prime retail street corner, wife beaters gearing up on booze or other drugs, white kids from the suburbs peddling stolen cell phones for a fix in the inner city. But this research has barely scratched the surface of this complicated and often contradictory underground.

The central limitation of a study of this sort is that the causal links between drugs and crime cannot be adequately probed. The interview component was conducted by non-specialists in an accusatory environment, resulting in startling levels of prevarication among the subjects of the research. This leaves high levels of certainty about the presence of drugs, but little guidance about what can be made of this fact.

There was much confirmation of what had been learned in qualitative research:
  • South Africa's drug problems are still very much segmented along ethnic, gender, and geographic lines. Blacks are least likely to use drugs, whites are most likely to use cocaine, and coloureds and Indians are most likely to use Mandrax. The Cape Flats represent a major problem area for Mandrax use and associated crime. White sex workers have a crack problem

  • Drugs use is more common among youthful offenders

  • People who have done time in prison are more likely to do drugs.
But the central questions are left unanswered:
  • Does drug use lead to crime?
  • If so, how and what kind of crime does it lead to?
  • Which comes first—the drugs or the crime?
  • How much violent crime is associated with drug markets?
  • How much interpersonal violence is due to intoxication?
  • How common is substance addiction among those who commit crime?
To answer these questions, more qualitative research is needed. This work needs to be conducted by those who are able to display a good knowledge of drugs in order to win the trust of the subjects, possibly by peers. It needs to take place under conditions that are non-threatening, such as circumstances where drug use is common or easily admitted (such as in rehabilitation centres, prisons, or on-site where drugs are consumed). The parallel processes of the criminal career and the personal drug history need to be traced, and their interstices mapped. Sophistication is needed in the interpretation of this data, as even the user-criminals themselves may lack insight into the relationship between these two phenomena.

It is nice to have numbers, but these numbers are rarely so clear-cut as to justify the sound bytes that are often made of them. Proper interpretation of this data requires as much qualification as any focus group or key informant interview. The veneer of science laid by test tubes and metabolites should not gloss over the central limitations of the research.

That having been said, the 3-Metros Arrestee Study does show, using internationally accepted methodology, that parts of South Africa's arrestee population have levels of drug use that stand up to those of any other part of the world where similar research has been done. This is an issue that demands the attention of a country where crime is consistently rated by all sectors of society as the number one problem facing the nation. If the drug use is indeed driving crime in South Africa, every effort must be made to diminish its input.

This should be done, as suggested by the findings of the study, by addressing the motivations of the many distinct actors in the drug markets, from the importers/manufacturers/cultivators to the consumers. To prevent people from using or selling drugs, it must be understood why they got involved in the first place.