How Do We Solve the Crime Conundrum?

Beginning of article

SITTING in traffic yesterday, I heard a radio report about a cash-in-transit heist in Johannesburg that ended in a shoot-out between cops and robbers. It struck me that it had been a while since one of those had been reported.

Which got me thinking about crime trends in South Africa, and how the murder rate has been steadily declining, as has the general level of violent crime. Are our police getting better? Are the criminals more wary of being shot?

I'm not a criminologist or a statistician, but it seems obvious that there must be a direct correlation between the levels of violent crime and the number of guns in circulation. It was 21 years ago that the war in …