Crime and Punishment on the Margins of the Postapartheid State

This article examines how communities on the margin of the new postapartheid state reclaim “stolen goods” and deal with “criminals” in ways that inflict physical punishment and are often profoundly brutal or violent. It explores how the use of corporal punishment in the form of beatings and other forms of inflicting pain comes to be seen as both necessary and legitimate by the affected communities. Crime is often articulated by township communities as their biggest obstacle to accessing development funding, investments, and employment initiatives. By drawing on past forms of organization from the struggle against apartheid, township residents, believing that the police are unable to preserve law and order, take the law into their own hands. These residents have created a range of local security structures to deal with crime—some well organized, others working on a more ad hoc basis. The kind of “justice” these emerging structures stand for is often the only kind of justice that large numbers of citizens in the South African townships can afford. The particular manner in which criminals are dealt with in the township is intimately related to the socioeconomic marginalization that most township residents encounter on a daily basis.