MICHAEL MORRIS
THE first jolt delivered by Don Pinnock’s new book about gangsterism is in the title – the graphical crossing-out of “Cape” from the city’s name and its replacement by the word “Gang”, in crimson.
By implication, we are a metropolis defined less by idyllic cosmopolitanism and the grandeur of Table Mountain – the balmy backdrop in the cover photograph to a tattooed gangster clasping a handgun in a pose of defiant menace – than by what Pinnock calls a “shadow city”.
This is an urban reality with “its threads firmly anchored in the capitalist economy, knotted into local control and governance systems but extending far beyond the borders of South Africa” and whose “influence is considerable and maintained through covert connections, graft, coercion, illegal trade and, not infrequently, murder”.
“Cape Town,” Pinnock writes, “is consistently rated in the top 10 international tourist destinations and celebrities from abroad are often seen strolling along its Waterfront, tanning on its beaches or enjoying themselves on elegant wine farms nearby. But as the sun dips in the west, the iconic mountain casts a dark shadow across the Cape Flats and some of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world.”
Last year, the city’s murder rate was the highest in a decade at 55 in 100 000 – but much higher in the most dangerous suburbs, “higher than in some countries at war”.
If all of these things make up a pathology that is at least anecdotally familiar to most people, the biggest jolt in Gang Town is arguably Pinnock’s conviction it can be reversed if we could muster the will and the imagination to do it. And he doesn’t mean sending in the army.
Gangs – and the pernicious drug trade central to them – are less a criminal or law-and-order problem than a youth problem. Cape Town’s young people, he believes, need, and deserve our attention – coupled with a radical rethink of conventional approaches to drugs, prisons and education.
Gang Town, Pinnock’s third book on gangsterism in as many decades, is by design a redemptive contribution. It is discomfortingly bald in tracing the history, depth and reach of profoundly damaging gang activity, but a full third of the book is devoted to solutions and practical steps that offer routes out of the nightmare.
These are predicated on the universal nature of teenagehood, the importance of rites of passage and building the “personal resilience” required for reaching fulfilling adulthood. Drawing on 30 years of studying and getting to know gangsters, Pinnock writes: “The desire for a role model, the safety of a protected turf, validation and inclusion into a peer group as well as rituals of belonging are all part of the attraction of gangs. So it should come as no surprise that the pathway to personal resilience I’m proposing is almost identical to the path of inclusion into a gang.”
Gangs succeed, the thesis goes, where society fails its youngest.
Pinnock is more than a criminologist; he has written upwards of a dozen books in fields as diverse as history, biography, natural science and travel. He has also published a novel.
But he has kept returning to gangs; his first book on the subject, Brotherhood, was published in 1984 and, viewing Gang Town as his last, felt strongly that it must be directed at convincing readers – and policy-makers especially – there are solutions and they must be embraced.
He steeled himself to “ask deep fundamental questions: not ‘what is happening in prisons?’, but ‘what is prison for?’; not ‘why is education failing?’, but ‘what should education be providing?’; not ‘whether fathers are failing’ but ‘what is fathership to a young man?’.”
Critically, taking in controversisl research on epigenetics (complex chemical processes in pregnant women which research suggests adapt the foetus to the environment it will be born into – which, in the case of stressed environments such as the Cape Flats, could mean children are born with a predisposition, or sufficient aggression, for survival in hostile conditions), helping pregnant women and very young children is crucial.
Considering all these things, Pinnock said, led him to an essence: “Cape Town does not have a gang problem, but a youth problem, of which gangs and drug-use are outcomes.”
“The culpability shifts from kids shooting each other in the streets to a much bigger context which makes it difficult for them not to do that.
“It means working with fundamental stuff – reforming education, changing prisons, where we warehouse people with other damaged, hurt, angry people and end up with recidivism of 90 percent. How cruel we have become as a people when we deal with kids like this.
“We need to tackle big challenges at a policy level – like decriminalising drugs as a step towards legalising them.
“The problem with the conventional ‘war on drugs’ is that it’s about the chemical – cracking down on dealers, trying to get the drugs out of circulation. But the trouble is, drugs are not the reason for addiction; social conditions are.
“We will look back one day on the war on drugs and realise how we left the marketing of these dangerous substances to the criminal underground. Until the state takes over, licenses them, deals with kids who overdose, helps addicts, it’s going to be major problem.
“Someone said to me recently, ‘You are suggesting big changes, changing education, the prison system, decriminalising drugs... aren’t you going a bit far?’ My reply was that if we don’t lay down the necessary conditions the solution is never going to happen.”
It would require long-term commitment and patience, because interventions would take years to yield results.
“But we have to start and we have to start on all fronts.”
His first preferred intervention would be a resumption of nurse visits for pregnant mothers.
“This was done in the United States and the impact over time was phenomenal in bringing down later delinquency. Recent long-range studies, based on epigenetic research in the US and New Zealand show that early damage leads to delinquency.
“So, as a first step, you can start right there. The second is to create a sense of responsibility in fathers, to help them understand how important they are to their sons. These things are not easy, they are hard to put in place – and people want quick fixes. But, starting with families, then with fixing broken communities, helping people to stand together as communities, is critical in developing resilience and respect.”
Pinnock said he was encouraged by provincial and city programmes – such as the Violence Prevention Unit, Ceasefire and the Chrysalis Academy – as well as key officials (he mentioned councillor JP Smith and leader of the police gang unit, General Jeremy Vearey) which showed there was a willingness to move beyond conventional approaches.
“We can take bold steps, and we need to. If we hunker down to the old apartheid ways of ‘crush them’, we will get into big trouble. That’s not the route. These gangs thrive on opposition. If you can shoot a policeman, you are cool. If the army is called into your suburb, you have made it.
“And the greatest chance of success is to build around performance of the needs that make gangs work and make them attractive. Kids are saying they need that – the rite of passage, the respect. It can be done.
“It’s not rocket science, but if we really want to fix it, it means taking one step at a time, not just clobbering them.
“We know enough about adolescent psychology to do it. It doesn’t always work, but we can do it.”
Making a difference had to start with understanding young people.
“And these kids,” he added, “are worth it.”