It's not just economic crimes this is wanton rape, murder, and wholesale take overs of state infrastructure by organised crime outfits. This isn't normal crime like you may encounter in other countries, we are frequently topping the list in the most violent categories of crime.
Right now theres an epidemic of gender based violence, that is men raping and murdering women or male partners/spouses just outright murdering their partners. Doubt this is linked to a war against poor people.
Yeah, no one is saying that isn't the solution to a lot of crime (not sure about GBV though, it should come down with better education).
Unfortunately when Mandela took over, the ANC did nothing to improve the education system for the poor, so now you can basically get through school by just showing up and sleeping in class.
When the kids weren't passing, instead of trying to improve their circumstances and enable them to learn more successfully as well as up skilling the teachers, their solution was to lower the pass mark. This went on for years until the pass mark got to the 30% it is today.
Then again, my Zimbabwean friend always reminds me of the time that the students were given a text book that was a year or two behind, and in protest they burned them all. There also needs to be a certain desire to learn and better yourself.
There are also those who walk 1h+ to school and back every day in the sweltering heat, pouring rain and sometimes through rivers.
The priorities of the government are really only to enrich themselves and keep the populous uneducated so that their propaganda works on them.
I love my country but holy fuck, shits fucked back home.
Also if you're telling me that the only thing stopping people from raping people, and committing senseless murders is money then that's a pretty sad indictment on humankind.
South Africa is, from what I hear from south African immigrants, a hell hole of crime and corruption. It's not necessarily poor people committing all the crime. But yet these private security forces aren't going to be targeting the richer corrupt people committing the worst crimes.