Profile of the Murder Victim in South Africa as an Aid to Prevention (From International Victimology, P 311-319, 1996, Chris Sumner, Mark Israel, et al., eds. - See NCJ-169474)

• NCJ Number: 169506
• Author(s): R Snyman
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 9 pages
• Sale Source: Australian Institute of Criminology
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

This paper attempts to profile the victim and perpetrator of murder in Soweto, South Africa, and to identify pointers toward a prevention strategy.

Abstract

Information for this study was gathered from police dockets. Two major drawbacks hampered the data collection. First, a number of murder dockets were incomplete. Second, there is an official distinction between so-called political murders and criminal murders; dockets researched for this report covered only criminal murders. The majority of the victims were male (86 percent); 69 percent were between ages 21 and 40; 70 percent were single; and 27 percent were unemployed. In only 2 percent of the cases studied was the murder committed by a female; 74 percent of the perpetrators were between ages 21 and 40; most were unmarried and one-third were unemployed; 40 percent had a criminal record, with just under half of previous convictions being for crimes against the person. The article presents a profile of the crime situation in terms of the relationship between the victim and offender prior to the murder; the motive for the murder; the role of alcohol; and the weapon and methods used to commit the murder. The article also suggests components for prevention strategies. References