"Asicamtheni Magents"
Let's Talk Magents
Youth attitudes towards crime

by

Lauren Segal, Joy Pelo & Pule Rampa

In Crime and Conflict, No. 15, pp. 23-27, Autumn 1999.

Lauren Segal is a former Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Joy Pele is a Research Assistant at Clacherty and Associates.

Pule Rampa was a Research Assistant on this project.

Young men from poor areas are responsible for a large percentage of street and violent crime. Understanding this group and their motivations is not only essential for planning long-term solutions to the crime problem, but also for all front-line personnel dealing with crime and its victims.

The government can only win the battle against crime if they stop saying, 'Hey our kids are wrong, our kids needs to be like this and that." Let them sit down with their children, speak to them and find out what is bothering them. (interview with a twenty-four-year-old hijacker).

During the course of last year the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation initiated a research project to "speak to our children and find out what is bothering them." We focussed specifically on uncovering the voices of young people involved in committing violence crime.

While the voices don't present us with solutions, they do frame the issues in a more complex way and lend insight into different approaches that may be taken. Indeed, it is also our firm belief that education and other programmes geared to fight crime can only succeed if they take into account the worldviews of the people they attempt to reach.

The Centre interviewed fifteen young men currently serving jail sentences for the crimes they committed. They conducted a further eighteen interviews with youth on the streets who are still involved in criminal activities. Youth between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five were targeted, as statistics show that most violent crimes are committed by males of this age group. A large percentage of victims also fall into this age group.

Why do crime?

The youth involved in crime – or amagents as they are popularly referred to in the township – all had complex narratives to tell about how they came to be involved in crime, and they spoke openly of their criminal activities.

Broken homes and poverty were the two issues that youth spoke about most as having influenced their decision to do crime. The picture painted by the majority of the amagents was that of families riddled with tensions and conflict.

The youngsters were very often abandoned or kicked out of their homes. Many experienced their parents getting divorced at an early age and having to live with a stepfather or stepmother who rejected them. Many expressed feelings of being unloved. Steve, a 20-year-old serving a ten-year jail sentence, never knew his mother and lived with six of his step-mother's children. His voice is typical of the situation that many of these youngsters find themselves in.

"I don't know the warmth of motherhood. I remember once I asked my step- brother about my mother and he said it was not my business. I got so very angry that I stabbed him and that is the last day that I was at home. My friends housed me in a very small shack in their yard. We started stealing from cars. I should say that doing crime was not a choice."

When the interviewees spoke further of the extreme poverty that was also a feature of their childhood, their perceptions were often coloured by racial resentment. Pumlani told us how,

When I was young my mother was working for a white lady and she used to tell me how her dishes were not put in the same place as her madam's dishes. They were put with the dog's dishes. It simply means a black man is a dog. Then I started thinking there are other people who are living a good life. They are driving fancy cars. My mother started selling at the streets and the life started to get a bit better but I wasn't satisfied because I couldn't get things that I wanted. Then I thought to be a criminal is the better way because there was no-one to help us.

A small number of the amagents discounted both poverty and broken families as being the push actor along the path to their involvement in crime. Rather they posited notions of manhood and peer pressure as the main reason for joining the amagents.

Lebo, a small nineteen-year-old boy serving a ten-year prison sentence explained how he "comes from a rich family. I used to get everything I wanted. But I felt like I needed to take responsibility for my life. I felt like I was a mama's baby and that meant I was not man enough to have things of my own, things that I worked for. So I wanted to prove I could do things for myself and I started to do crime."

From this and other similar narratives, it is clear that crime is one of the new forms of initiation into manhood for young boys in the urban setting of the township. The age-old institutions and traditional rituals that once governed young boys' entry into adult life have been replaced by rites of passage that are often brutal and deadly.

Race

The common perception amongst the amagents is that little had shifted in terms of race relations in this country and that "it makes no difference if you steal from a white person. The next day he's gonna be driving another car but a black person is poor just like I am."

Most of the amagents are unapologetic about their racial attitudes and feel that white people are getting what they deserve if they are victims of crime. In Glen's opinion:

Well, I have no mercy for white people. My mother is suffering because of white people and I hate them. If you take it historically, they are the cause of all this.

This sense of racial inequality influences the amagents' criminal behaviour. Pumlani explains that the motto of his gang was "Hange spine location. Hange spinele a dahki." "This means," says Pumlani, "that I do not steal or make funny things in the location. I do not steal from a black man. I only do those things in the towns or in the suburbs. At the suburbs, we know that the white man, the settlers, do have money. We were the real comrades because we weren't stealing from a black man."

The "skeem"

In a world where traditional rituals, schooling and other institutions are undermined and family life is often in disarray, it is the gang (or the "skeem") that is the new home for the amagents.

It is not always a comforting or easy substitute. Gangs have their own style of language, dress code, set of ritual obligations, rights, rewards and punishments as well as clear criteria for how one attains status and moves up in the hierarchy. The gang creates a contained and structured world that eschews the norms of conventional morality and has as its centre guns, violence and often death.

Thebo sums up this mixture of brotherhood and sense of threat in his description of his gang: "Our logo is 'Together we live, together we die. Blood in, blood out.' Having said this means that we are getting into business and we are in it together."

The "business" that the amagents get into usually starts with "bag smash" (mugging) and then quickly "progresses" to hijacking and "house arrest" – the most lucrative of the criminal activities this group of interviewees engaged in. The amagents talk about going out on a "mission" and being "on duty". Izzy told us that,

I am always ready to kill and die when I am on duty. We do not even talk about them (the victims) when we go on duty. If anything happens we just shoot because if we do not they will shoot you.

Tjovita adds that, "I am used to seeing someone being killed. Before, I was scared I could not watch, but now its okay with me."

While on duty, the amagents are not only the perpetrators of violence but sometimes find themselves at the other end of the gun. During one house arrest, Lebo describes how "one of my friends went to the bedroom to look for jewellery and possibly a gun. As he got into the room we heard gunfire. He was shot by a family friend who was visiting the house at the time. We then all fired randomly just to escape alive. We dragged him out to the car as we were firing. We managed to escape and he survived."

The most alarming part of this story is what Lebo describes as the impact of this incident on his friend:

This all instilled moral confidence and encouraged him to lead. When you survive from such scenes you then consider yourself as unya ndini (a wild dog) and you become even more dangerous and respected.

This celebration of violence on the job extends into an equally machismo and nihilist culture within the gang itself. Most of the interviewees had their own story to tell or that of a fellow gang member who had been killed by another member of the gang. The most common reasons for this appear to be refusal to carry out "a duty" or because of a "double crossing".

We sometimes kill each other. Say they give you a duty and you don't perform it, they'll instruct one of the gang to kill you. It may be your friend, it doesn't matter. You should kill him. This one guy refused and his own brother was instructed to kill him and he did.

In Steve's instance, his best friend in the gang was one of the six or seven people he claims to have killed. He feels remorse for his action:

I had taken drugs and me and my best friend had a conflict over a car. He wanted to have the car we had stolen for himself. At this time I was drugged. I had taken mandrax and I shot him and left him to die. He was a nice person and a student at the time and of course a good friend. But I killed him and I regret it every day.

Weapons

The violence that is referred to in these descriptions is carried out with a variety of different kinds of guns ranging from the hand pistol to the AK-47. Guns have not only altered the sense of power felt by the amagents in comparison with the gangs in the township in the previous decades but they have also made the consequences of their criminal behaviour far more serious than before.

There appears to be several means by which a gun can be secured. "It is easy to find guns in the township," Izzy says. "You can find them from disarming a policeman, buy it or find it during a robbery or hijacking."

Bra Sticker's brother "was from the MK army and he supplied us with all the things we needed. We also got three guns from house-breakings and hijacking. Getting bullets is also easy. Most people we knew sold them for two rand each."

Guns are not an "optional extra" on the job. They are seen as a vital part of the requirement for a mission. Tjovito says that:

When I go on duty I should always have my gun with me. If I don't have it, it simply means that I am not serious about business.

The rewards?

The material rewards and lifestyle offered by the "profession" appear to outweigh the threat of violence and other dangers that are part and parcel of everyday life for the amagents. The money made from crime not only enables these youngsters to support their families but also supports a particular way of life that it glamorous and revered by many in the township.

By all accounts it is the trappings that go with the job that consolidate the amagents' membership in their new life. Steve tells how:

My friend and I did crime for similar reasons of our family background but we used our money for useless things like clothes, alcohol, drugs and "vibe" (groove life). Ladies also demand a lot. They don't want boyfriends who don't have any money. They want you to be mobile and to have cash. If you can't afford it, then you steal it. If I steal your car and drive to a party with my girlfriend, everyone will go, 'What a car he's driving' and every girl will wish to be in love with me.

Again and again the amagents expressed the sentiment that "One cannot just wear ordinary clothes and "drive a two-series" (which means to walk) if a boy wants to attract a girl's attention."

It is interesting to note that in a separate set of interviews with young girls, many agreed with the way that the amagents see themselves attaining their status. One girl described the "groove life" as being dominated by consumerist values. She believes that this does lead boys to do crime:

As girls we do contribute to crime. We expect boys to dress in a particular way and do certain things, especially with the groove life. As I girl I would only talk to you when I see that you are in fashion and that you are not being left behind by the syllabus.

Another added candidly that:

Girls are self-centred. We really don't care much about the person as such. We care about what they can afford. We put pressure on our boyfriends and lead them towards doing crime. We never stop them because you know that when he dies or goes to jail, you will simply find somebody else.

The most embarrassing thing for the amagents is to be uwile – which literally translates as "you have fallen". In the criminal context this means the gangster is no longer able to keep up with the latest fashions and trends. The pressure is that as soon as a new pair of shoes is on the market and you don't buy them you are out of the "skeem" (group).

The perception that girls are in some way to blame for the amagents' criminal behaviour is an issue that requires careful attention when tackling campaigns to reduce levels of crime. The perception also needs to be contextualised within the very high levels of sexual harassment and abuse that these same girls are subjected to by the amagents.

The amagata (police)

The amagents' perceptions and experiences of the police and the criminal justice system add greatly to their sense of omnipotence. In each and every interview, police assistance in the crimes committed by the amagents is a central theme. There appears to be a range of ways that the police either directly or indirectly assist the amagents. In the most extreme cases, police instigate the crime. Steve says that he was arrested for a crime that he was asked to carry out by the police themselves.

"Two policemen gave us the duty we were arrested for. They even gave us the guns to hijack the car. This was not the first time. They used to be our main supply channel for guns and we used to supply them with cars, television sets and hi-fi's."

Most of the time, however, the police appear to assist in more indirect ways. In the amagents' telling, police regularly accept bribes to overlook the crimes or drop the charges against the amagents. The price for this type of justice is not that high. For a mere R3 000 you can buy your way out of a prison sentence for any crime you commit. Bra Sticker tells how after he and his gang got arrested,

We went looking for the policeman who was handling the case of the mort (murder) we committed. We gave him R3 000 to take care of this case. He told the family of the deceased that the person who had killed their son is also dead and the docket is missing.

Prison

This sense of omnipotence in relation to police is strengthened by the amagents' belief that there is absolutely no stigma attached to going to prison. The amagents speak of prison functioning as a school of crime, a place where status is gained rather than lost, a "revolving door" between the inside and outside world. Tjovito tells how,

I've been in jail several times. It's a school of crime. We discuss the best methods of doing crime and things such as potential buyers and pricing. The crimes that happen in prison do not differ from outside. The food is not healthy so we sell dagga and clothes and we steal from within the prison. It all happens in the kitchen. We even assault people for no apparent reason in prison. Weapons are smuggled in by visitors and we also bribe the warders and get knives. Sodomy happens in jail. It's a daily activity and it's also now a business. Some do it for cigarettes.

Bra Sticker confirms this: "After I was sentenced and came to Sun City, I started selling drugs. There is a lot of corruption in prison. I welcomed all the new prisoners and at nights I could get access to the other sections and sell my stuff. Most warders would usually come and eat with me. I used to cook very nice food and I had lots of money through running my drug business. I had a TV set, a video and a music system and I was a "big ou". We go in being useless and we come out even worse. When you come out the only business you know is the same that made you go into prison."

Some of these amagents who are behind bars believe that if they had known how hard it was inside, they might have thought harder about their actions. Steve believes that "Most young people who are involved in crime don't know that life in prison is not pleasant, that you can die any minute especially at night when the warders are gone. Those who are doing hijacking don't know that you can get twenty years in prison."

Glen adds:

If I had a son and he came to visit me I would say 'My son, go to school and learn, don't ever follow my steps, they are all wrong, and do something to be proud of, not like me.' Life in prison is very tough.

The most poignant statement from the perpetrators in prison came from a nineteen-year- old boy who is serving life and twenty. Reflecting on his life, he said:

I wish I could have my life again. I wish I could walk the streets again.

The future

The challenge facing educators and other stakeholders involved in fighting the high crime rate in South Africa is to find the ways to intervene in the lives of the amagents. From the outset we should recognise that there are no short-term solutions to the societal and systemic injustices or corruption that the amagents speak about as having encouraged their criminal behaviour.

There are also few interventions that would actually change the attitudes of those who are prepared to live and die for their life in crime. As Izzy says: "It is difficult to stop crime, very difficult. To start with you can not stop crime completely. Some people have made a vow that they shall do crime until they die. It is a single trip, no return. One other thing is that some of us have friends who have died in this business and therefore we feel it is our duty to die in the same way."

Rather than addressing the amagents who feel it is their duty to die in the same way as their friends, one has to look to those youth that are at risk of taking the first step down the path that leads them into a life of crime. We can perhaps gather some hope from the amagents' reflections in prison that they would do things differently if they have their time again. This suggests that there are real costs that they bear and it is our job to show the youth these costs, to point out the real consequences of criminal behaviour.

The main point to be extracted from listening to the voices of the amagents is that life skills are key to diverting people away from a life of crime.

In the difficult circumstances in which many youth in this country live, they need to be given a sense of self-worth. They should be encouraged to see that they have choices, that people with similar lives to themselves have chosen a path free of crime.

They must be shown values that challenge a world where morality is debased, where material possessions are feted and where lives are cheap. They must be given the skills to realise these values. Most especially they should be encouraged to dream and believe in their future so that they can build their self-esteem, feel that they have a stake in the future, and harness their abilities to the ends that they choose.

© Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation