In many communities across SA, mob justice has become a frightening and increasingly normal response to crime.
In places such as Kwazakhele, frustration over theft, drug-related crime, housebreaking, robbery and violence has reached dangerous levels.
Communities are angry.
People are tired of repeat offenders.
Families feel abandoned by a criminal justice system that often appears too slow, too weak, or too distant.
Yet despite this anger, we must ask ourselves an important question: when a community beats a child or young person nearly to death, who has truly won?
Recently, a young boy of about 17 years old was brutally assaulted by a mob in Kwazakhele.
He suffered severe head injuries.
His injuries may have lifelong effects on his ability to think, learn, communicate and function normally.
Yes, there may have been wrongdoing.
Yes, there may have been a crime.
But when a crowd becomes judge, jury and executioner, we create even greater harm.
We replace one crime with another.
Mob justice is often driven by fear, anger, hopelessness and distrust in the justice system.
Communities feel that police do not respond quickly enough.
Cases are opened but never investigated properly. Suspects are released.
Victims lose hope.
Over time, people begin to believe that taking matters into their own hands is the only solution.
But mob justice is not justice. It is violence.
Mob justice destroys lives in ways that are often hidden.
The young person who survives may be left with permanent disabilities, brain damage, emotional trauma, physical scars, or a future filled with shame and rejection.
Families are left carrying the burden of caring for someone who can no longer work, study or live independently.
Children and young people are especially vulnerable.
Many of them are drawn into crime through poverty, hunger, drug abuse, peer pressure, family violence and a lack of positive opportunities.
In many cases, the young person being beaten by the community is not the mastermind behind the crime.
They are often the smallest and weakest link in a much bigger chain.
The real architects of destruction are often drug dealers, gang leaders, exploitative adults and those who profit from the pain of others.
They recruit children to steal, carry drugs, sell substances, break into homes and do the dangerous work while they remain hidden behind the scenes.
If communities truly want to fight crime, then the focus should not only be on punishing children.
We must confront the bigger systems that create crime in the first place.
We need stronger action against drug dealers who continue to poison our communities.
We need better policing and visible law enforcement.
We need safe spaces for young people, more after-school programmes, sports, arts, life skills, psychosocial support and pathways to employment.
We need to identify children who are at risk before they become involved in crime.
Most importantly, we need to rebuild trust between communities and the justice system.
Mob justice creates fear, revenge and more violence.
It teaches children that problems are solved through beating and humiliation.
It normalises cruelty. It destroys the moral fabric of the community.
As communities, we must ask ourselves whether we want to raise a generation that believes violence is the answer to violence.
Justice should protect lives, not destroy them.
The answer to crime cannot be more crime.
The answer must be prevention, accountability, rehabilitation and stronger community systems.
Communities must choose whether they want to be known for punishment or for building a safer future for their children.
If we continue to allow mob justice to grow, we will not only lose children to crime — we will lose our humanity too.
- Thobeka Belewa, director of Kaybez Skills Development Foundation NPO
