Out of the Mainstream: Critical Reflections on Organised Crime in the Western Cape (From Justice Gained? Crime and Crime Control in South Africa's Transition, P 29-57, 2004, Bill Dixon and Elrena Van Der Spuy, eds. -- See NCJ-206437)

• NCJ Number: 206438
• Author(s): Andre Standing
• Date Published: 2004
• Length: 29 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper examines manifestations of organized crime in South Africa's Western Cape and compares them with the mainstream paradigm of organized crime.

Abstract

The mainstream paradigm of organized crime portrays it as a virus that threatens the social and economic health of the civilized world. It is perceived as a predatory enterprise that exists outside of and in opposition to both the state and legal capitalist business. This paper first develops the theme that organized crime in South Africa's Western Cape is not an entity that exists outside of and in opposition to the state, but rather involves agents of the state, who have been deeply implicated in organizing large-scale criminal operations. As in the case of Russia, remnants from a previous authoritarian regime continue their exploitative objectives and tactics in positions of state power in South Africa. Another section of this paper challenges the view that organized crime is inherently destructive to the social and economic interests of the citizenry. It argues that not only do organized criminal enterprises supply a range of goods and services (not all of them illicit) demanded by local people, but gang leaders, in the interest of gaining the support of grass-roots populations, become local patrons who provide a crude, but sometimes appreciated, form of criminal governance and socioeconomic order. This happens because of the weakness of state authority and the inadequacies of official sources of social support. A third section of this paper challenges the view that organized crime is distinctly separate from legitimate capitalist business. In the Cape Flats of South Africa, however, there is a gross polarization of power and wealth between an elite and those they exploit, such that organized crime is a form of predatory capitalism that is increasingly characteristic of the wider global economy. Thus, organized crime -- rather than being an impediment to a mainstream capitalist economy regulated by the state for the benefit of all its citizens -- is rapidly becoming an intrinsic feature of contemporary capitalism itself. 28 notes and 57 references