Nongoloza's Children: Western Cape Prison Gangs During and After Apartheid, a book written as a monograph about the gangs from prisons of the Western Cape during and after racial isolation, was written for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation by Jonny Steinberg. [1] [2] It explores the prevalence of gangs in society and in prisons and offers recommendations for solving post-apartheid gang violence. [2]
The author writes that he spent nine months of research at PollsMoor Prison Admission Center. There he interviewed the prisoners, most of whom were awaiting trial. For an 18-month period he interviewed about 30 veterans members of gangs. During the 1980s and 1990s all of them served their sentences in prisons throughout the Western Cape. [3] [4]
According to Steinberg, The Numbers Gangs take their inspiration from the historical figure Nongoloza Mathebula, born Mzuzephi Mathebula, who became the founder of The Number Gangs in South Africa. An early Johannesburg bandit, he built a quasi-military band of outlaws, welding his small army together with a simple but potent ideology of banditry-as-anti-colonial-resistance. [3] [4]
People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) is a group formed in 1996 in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa. The organisation came to prominence for acts against gangsters, including arson and murder.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and others in law enforcement use the euphemism "security threat group". The purpose of this name is to remove any recognition or publicity that the term "gang" would connote when referring to people who have an interest in undermining the system.
Pollsmoor Prison, officially known as Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison, is located in the Cape Town suburb of Tokai in South Africa. Pollsmoor is a maximum security penal facility that continues to hold some of South Africa's most dangerous criminals. Although the prison was designed with a maximum capacity of 4,336 offenders attended by a staff of 1,278, the current inmate population is over 7,000.
Country of My Skull is a 1998 nonfiction book by Antjie Krog about the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It is based on Krog's experience as a radio reporter, covering the Commission from 1996 to 1998 for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The book explores the successes and failures of the Commission, the effects of the proceedings on her personally, and the possibility of genuine reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa.
Albert "Albie" Louis Sachs is a South African lawyer, activist, writer, and former judge appointed to the first Constitutional Court of South Africa by Nelson Mandela.
Jonny Steinberg is a South African writer and scholar.
Vlakplaas is a farm 20 km west of Pretoria that served as the headquarters of counterinsurgency unit C1 of the Security Branch of the apartheid-era South African Police. Though officially called Section C1, the unit itself also became known as Vlakplaas. Established in 1979, by 1990 it had grown from a small unit of five policemen and about fifteen askaris to a unit of nine squads.
A Human Being Died That Night is a 2003 book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela.
Prior to 1994, immigrants from elsewhere faced discrimination and even violence in South Africa due to competition for scarce economic opportunities. After majority rule in 1994, contrary to expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased. In 2008, at least 62 people were killed in the xenophobic uprising and attacks. In 2015, another nationwide spike in xenophobic attacks against immigrants in general prompted a number of foreign governments to begin repatriating their citizens. A Pew Research poll conducted in 2018 showed that 62% of South Africans expressed negative sentiment about foreign nationals living and working in South Africa, believing that immigrants are a burden on society by taking jobs and social benefits and that 61% of South Africans thought that immigrants were more responsible for crime than other groups. There is no factual evidence to substantiate the notion that immigrants are the main culprits of criminal activity in South Africa, even though the claim is incorrectly made sometimes by politicians and public figures. Between 2010 and 2017 the number of foreigners living in South Africa increased from 2 million people to 4 million people. The proportion of South Africa's total population that is foreign born increased from 2.8% in 2005 to 7% in 2019, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration, South Africa is the largest recipient of immigrants on the African continent.
Max Price served as the vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa, succeeding Njabulo Ndebele. He held this position for a decade, from 19 August 2008, until 30 June 2018.
Umkhosi Wezintaba, 'Umkosi we Seneneem', 'Abas'etsheni', the 'Nongoloza' and the 'Ninevites' were simultaneously criminal gangs and resistance movements formed by African men in South Africa between 1890 and 1920.
The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest recorded in the world. Police statistics of reported rapes as a per capita figure has been dropping in recent years, although the reasons for the drop has not been analysed and it is not known how many rapes go unreported. More women are attacked than men, and children have also been targeted, partly owing to a myth that having sex with a virgin will cure a man of HIV/AIDS. Rape victims are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS owing to the high prevalence of the disease in South Africa. "Corrective rape" is also perpetrated against LGBT men and women.
The Numbers Gang is a South African crime organization that originated as an African nationalist organisation. It is believed that they are present in most South African prisons. The gang was founded in KwaZulu-Natal The gang is divided into groups — the 26s, 27s and 28s.
Malesela Benjamin Moloise was a South African poet and political activist who came to international attention following his arrest and subsequent execution by the government of South Africa. From Soweto, Moloise worked as an upholsterer before turning to poetry during his time on death row. In 1983, Moloise was arrested for the 1982 murder of Phillipus Selepe, a black security policeman who assisted in capturing three African National Congress (ANC) members. Although he initially confessed to the murder, he later retracted the statement during his trial. Moloise's death sentence sparked national and international outrage and was seen as emblematic of South Africa's brutal crackdown on anti-apartheid activists.
The Number: One Man's Search for Identity in the Cape Underworld and Prison Gangs is a non-fiction book written by Jonny Steinberg about South Africa's criminal tradition of prison gangs and published in 2004 by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
The history of gangs in South Africa goes back to the Apartheid era.
Sabela is a covert communication dialect of several major South African languages formed by the Numbers gang. Sabela was originally developed in the mines during the early 1900's as a means of communication between the members of The Numbers Gang but as the gang's influence in grew in various South African prisons, the language became eminent in prison and since then, released inmates have introduced it to the general populace of South Africa. UkuSabela means to respond in various Nguni languages.
Donald Card was a South African security constable and politician who was the Mayor of East London, South Africa.
Annette Seegers is a South African academic who is emeritus professor in political studies at the University of Cape Town, where she has taught since 1986. She is best known for her research on civil–military relations in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa.