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School violence plays a significant role in shaping a school's culture and climate, which can have an impact on the participation and performance of learners in secondary education. In many instances, school violence can hinder the educational aspirations of learners. This paper investigates the impact of school violence on learners through the lenses of social justice theory and an interpretive paradigm. The sample of this qualitative research included three secondary schools in the Vhembe District in the Limpopo Province, South Africa, and are from advantaged and disadvantaged communities, representing a varied sample. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with 27 purposively selected teachers, including three principals, three heads of department, and 21 teachers. Data were analysed and interpreted using the constant comparative method of data analysis. The findings revealed corporal punishment, bullying, and sexual harassment as the major forms of violence perpetrated at the three schools. These are the direct result of the low socioeconomic status of parents, crime in the communities, and cultural and traditional beliefs of the community members. The study found that teachers spend most of their time solving challenges associated with various forms of school violence instead of focusing on teaching and learning. School violence also affects learners' concentration, thus increasing poor academic performance, classroom chaos, bunking of classes and depression. The study suggests that the victims of any form of school violence are encouraged to report the perpetrators to the school teachers and principals immediately. In addition, the school must conduct awareness seminars and workshops on various forms of school violence. If not monitored, these causes and effects may contribute to the widening gap of unequal educational outcomes of learners in the country.

Crime prevention, offender rehabilitation, and social reintegration are fundamentally important to South Africa's criminal justice system. A critical strategy deployed to ensure these is entrepreneurship education with the purpose to capacitate offenders with entrepreneurial skills, creativity, and innovation, prepare them for self-supporting life after release, and forestall repeat offending. This approach to ensuring self-reliance and discouraging recidivism -- as it would seem - appears to be skewed more in favour of long-term offenders than short offenders whose sentences are likely to terminate before they are able to benefit from this intervention. This paper thus foregrounds the necessity of doing justice to the coverage of entrepreneurship education by the South Africa's correctional institutions to short-term offenders to avoid the inadvertent alienation from the benefits inherent in entrepreneurial education. The shortness of short-term sentences must, however, be factored into the reform sought such that the entrepreneurial training does not necessarily have to be confined to the correctional institutions or limited to sentence duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of district‐level crime rates in South Africa on individual depression symptoms. We use panel data from the National Income Dynamics Survey collected between 2008 and 2014 and estimate an individual fixed effects regression model, thus controlling for characteristics of the individual's environment that could affect crime and mental health. We find that an increase of one standard deviation in property (violent) crime is associated with a 7.2 (8.7) percentage point increase in the probability of depression symptoms. Analysis of potential mechanisms suggests that indirect exposure to crime likely affects mental health by increasing stress rather than by changing physical health or labor market outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prevalence of undue delays in criminal proceedings in South Africa poses serious implications not only for the accused person's right to a fair trial but also for the rights and interests of crime victims. The South African criminal justice system is overburdened. This is because crime in South Africa is currently at an all-time high, resulting in a clogged court system. Due to this overburdened system, the entire criminal justice system is hampered, and cases take longer to resolve. The impact of these undue delays on crime victims, firstly is that justice delayed is justice denied and society resorts to commit vigilantism as they have lost faith in the criminal justice system. Secondly, there has been a perception from the society that the criminal justice system is biased and favors the rights of offenders or accused persons. In Rodrigues v National Director of Public Prosecutions and Other 2019 (2) SACR 251 (GJ), the court when dealing with undue delays for the first time, rights and interests of crime victims were considered even though the matter took more than 40 years. This judgment revealed the importance of the realisation of speedy trial rights for crime victims. Using the qualitative research method, the literature in this article indicates that the enactment of the right to a speedy trial for crime victims can be beneficial to all parties involved in criminal proceedings to curb undue delays in criminal proceedings. This article outlines the causes of undue delays in criminal proceedings, the impact that these delays have on specific crime victims and argues for the implementation and enforcement of the right to a speedy trial for crime victims in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African criminal law has no separate, distinct, or novel cultural defence. Such a defence could negate or mitigate an accused's criminal liability for a culturally motivated crime. Whether South Africa's criminal law could adopt such a defence requires understanding its influence on the requirements for criminal liability. This article evaluates the influence of the cultural defence on the elements of conduct and culpability. The first part deals with the cultural defence and voluntary conduct. The discussion then turns to culpability, which consists of criminal capacity and fault (mens rea). The third part considers the cultural defence's influence on criminal capacity, while the fourth considers its influence on fault. More specifically, the article evaluates how the existing types of defence that can negate conduct and culpability in South Africa's criminal law can accommodate arguments of an accused's cultural background, values, and beliefs to determine whether there is a gap that only a separate, distinct, or novel cultural defence can fill. The article concludes that South Africa's principles of conduct and culpability are already flexible enough to accommodate such arguments, obviating the need for introducing a separate, distinct, or novel cultural defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honeybee species have received widespread attention of late, concerning various threats and criminal activity within the industry. As beekeeping involves human-environment interactions, it is situated at the interface between the human social system and the ecosystem. This is primarily owing to the role of pollination in regulating the ecosystem and its implications for global food security. Seed dispersal is also important for biodiversity conservation and environmental sustainability. However, capitalistic economic drivers continue to mismanage natural resources, threatening beekeepers, and honeybee species. This article sheds light on two major issues in the beekeeping industry in South Africa: hive theft and vandalism, and malpractices related to eco-labelled honey. It discusses these as instances of green crimes and provides insights into their implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What effect does crime have on South Africans' electoral behaviour? Do crime victims and citizens who fear crime enter or exit the electoral arena? If they do vote, do they sanction the ruling African National Congress (ANC)? We use two rounds of Afrobarometer data to provide answers. We corroborate earlier findings that crime victimisation does not appear to shape electoral behaviour. Further, we find that sociotropic perceptions of crime do influence vote choice, although not always in the predicted direction. We explore who tend to be South African crime victims to cast light on these results. We find that opposition parties, specifically the Democratic Alliance (DA), have benefitted electorally from citizens' crime perceptions. We contend that the party's significant focus on crime help account for their ownership of the issue. Lastly, relative to other government performance evaluations, crime does matter, and its salience and importance have increased over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa remains an unequal society even nearly three decades post-apartheid. This puts the country in the limelight of the discourse on racism and its enduring effects. This article contributes to the literature on the effects of racism in South Africa particularly for the Black population group. Social inequality during and after apartheid is examined highlighting legal devices that entrenched racial discrimination in the country. The enduring social inequality for Blacks was emphasized through national survey research that has consistently over the years shown this group to be disproportionately affected. The authors then interrogated, using a psychological lens the effects that social inequality could have on three behavioral outcomes: aggression, crime, and social trust for Blacks. These variables were examined in the context of social inequality as a push factor for their manifestations. The authors emphasize the importance of providing a forum to uncover and address the trauma of the apartheid era on Blacks. Lastly, the importance of addressing the socio-economic inequality experienced by Blacks to ensure their wellbeing and capacity for self-restraint was emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]