Ours was a good news story as far as crime goes in South Africa -- most people tell me how lucky we were to escape unhurt. [...] A government study reported 27,600 homicides in 1999, giving South Africa a per-capita murder rate eight times worse than that of the United States. [...] The Cape Times newspaper recently ran a story about a gas station owner in the working class suburb of Langa who had been robbed 28 times and shot at 17 times over the past three years. No one was arrested.
South Africa's total population, just for information, is approximately 40 million. By comparison, in 1999, the last year for which final statistics are available, the total number of murders in the United States, population approximately 280 million, is 15,533. Not only is South Africa's murder rate higher, but the raw number is nearly double.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!