2 hours ago
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In the past month or so, you may have seen a number of cases in court of people accused of extorting businesses, construction projects and other establishments.
Their cases are rightly receiving warranted attention from the media as the prevalence of extortion rings in SA has again become the subject of our national conversation.
In recent weeks, we have heard harrowing stories of victims, including small business operators, doctors, schools or property tenants being extorted to pay so-called protection fees from thugs who threaten and, at times, unleash violence to get their way.
Police have identified seven sectors which have been targeted by extortionists in the past five years.
These include construction, transport, security, mining sector as well as municipalities where groupings storm boardrooms demanding a cut from tenders.
However, a sobering fact emerged yesterday when police management told parliament that from over 6,000 cases of extortion reported, just over 2,300 people were arrested and only 178 were convicted in the past five years.
This means only 7% of those arrested have been convicted in that period.
Police say this is because many complainants who report cases either withdraw them out of fear of their persecutors or they lose interest in pursuing prosecution.
Effectively, this means that these widespread crimes, which undermine service delivery and economic development, are hardly prosecuted in full.
This is not because perpetrators are unknown but because these criminals exert so much fear in their victims that they abandon their pursuit of justice.
But this ultimately is a reflection of the distance between police and the society they serve.
It indicates a lack of confidence people have in the police to be able to protect them should they stand up to, and expose, these syndicates.
The fact that some communities believe it is more beneficial to work with, and pay, extortionists than to resist them only cements this view.
In their report to parliament, police list community engagement as one of their strategies to deal comprehensively with extortion.
While such engagements may indeed happen, the numbers demonstrate that they have not been effective, at least not enough to rebuild public trust in the men and women in blue.
A different approach, backed by effective response to incidents of this crime, is how the cops may eventually cross this bridge.
