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.
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior, with such behavior often constituting a form of organized crime.
The Liberal Party of South Africa was a South African political party from 1953 to 1968.
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.
Tokai, a large residential suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, is situated on the foothills of the Constantiaberg, and is bordered by Steenberg and Kirstenhof to the south, Bergvliet to the east, Constantia to the north and the SAFCOL pine tree plantations against the mountain to the west.
Charles van Onselen is a researcher and historian based at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Jonny Steinberg is a South African writer and scholar.
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is the Research Chair in Studies in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She graduated from Fort Hare University with a bachelor's degree and an Honours degree in psychology. She obtained her master's degree in Clinical Psychology at Rhodes University. She received her PhD in psychology from the University of Cape Town. Her doctoral thesis, entitled "Legacies of violence: An in-depth analysis of two case studies based on interviews with perpetrators of a 'necklace' murder and with Eugene de Kock", offers a perspective that integrates psychoanalytic and social psychological concepts to understand extreme forms of violence committed during the apartheid era. Her main interests are traumatic memories in the aftermath of political conflict, post-conflict reconciliation, empathy, forgiveness, psychoanalysis and intersubjectivity. She served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). She currently works at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein as a senior research professor.
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.
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.
Nigel Worden is a British/South African historian who has researched the history of Cape slavery and the social and cultural history of early colonial Cape Town. He is Emeritus Professor of History and retired from the Historical Studies department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2016. He graduated from Jesus College Cambridge and was subsequently Research Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge and Lecturer in Commonwealth History at the University of Edinburgh. He holds MA and PhD degrees in History from the University of Cambridge and BA degrees in Art History and Linguistics from the University of South Africa.
Four Corners is a 2013 South African coming of age crime drama film about family lost and regained, directed by Ian Gabriel. The film was selected as the official South African Submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, but was not nominated for an award. It did, however, win Best Narrative Feature at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival in 2014.
Mikhael Subotzky is a South African artist based in Johannesburg. His installation, film, video and photographic work have been exhibited widely in museums and galleries, and received awards including the KLM Paul Huf Award, W. Eugene Smith Grant, Oskar Barnack Award and the Discovery Award at Rencontres d'Arles. He has published the books Beaufort West (2008), Retinal Shift (2012) and, with Patrick Waterhouse, Ponte City (2014). Subotzky is a member of Magnum Photos.
James William Kilgore is a convicted American felon and former fugitive for his activities in the 1970s with the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing terrorist organization in California. After years of research and writing, he later became a research scholar and ultimately worked at the University of Illinois' Center for African Studies in Champaign–Urbana.
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. It explores the prevalence of gangs in society and in prisons and offers recommendations for solving post-apartheid gang violence.
The history of gangs in South Africa goes back to the Apartheid era.
Jonathan Ancer is a South African journalist, author, podcaster and media trainer. He wrote Uncovering Craig Williamson, which was on the longlist for the Alan Paton literary prize. Ancer wrote Betrayal: The Secret Lives of Apartheid Spies which was released in 2019.
