Abstract
Violent crime in South Africa is sometimes said to be unusual, because it is perceived to frequently be gratuitous. This article engages with the question of how to define gratuitous violence. If the term gratuitous is understood to mean 'for nothing', gratuitous violence should be understood as violence that is 'low on expressive and instrumental motivations'. Whilst the evidence is that much violence is 'instrumental', violence in South Africa may be unusual but it may be better to articulate this in terms of the concepts both of 'expressive' and gratuitous violence. Gratuitous violence and the apparent cruelty that characterises some acts of instrumental violence also appear to imply that 'empathy deficits' might be a characteristic of many perpetrators of violence.
Highlights
Often involves 'actions which seem to be sadistic or gratuitous'.3 In another example, a 2010 Economist special report on South Africa, released to coincide with the opening of the soccer World Cup, stated that '[m]ore than the level of crime it is the sheer gratuitousness of the violence that is shocking.'[4]
There is a widespread perception that violence in South Africa is in some way unusual, that perpetrators are disproportionately violent, and that they engage in violence unnecessarily
This article argues that the term 'gratuitous violence' needs to be distinguished from 'expressive violence' – something that objective definitions fail to do
Summary
Violent crime in South Africa is sometimes said to be unusual, because it is perceived to frequently be gratuitous. Whilst the evidence is that much violence is 'instrumental', violence in South Africa may be unusual but it may be better to articulate this in terms of the concepts both of 'expressive' and gratuitous violence. This article is intended as a contribution to exploring the idea that violence in South Africa is 'unusual' It does this by grappling with the concept of gratuitous violence. The article argues that the perceptions that violence in South Africa is unusual in some way would better be articulated as a perception that much violence is 'expressive or gratuitous'. It may be very difficult to answer questions about whether or not violence in South Africa is disproportionately gratuitous or expressive or unusual in some other way. If the principal issue with many perpetrators is something other than anger, this would motivate for reconsidering the types of rehabilitation programmes that are provided
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