Violent Cities in Times of Peace : A Study on Reducing Criminal Violence in Post-War Urban Communities in South Africa

The end of civil war does not equal the end of violence. Many post-war societies struggle with anoutburst of criminal violence in major cities, after armed conflicts have officially ended in peaceagreements. Crime control programs are a response to reduce criminal violence, but vary greatly interms of level of implementation, approach, and success. This study explores why some of thosecriminal violence control programs are successful in reducing violence, whereas others are not.Deriving from a theoretical framework of urban crime prevention, it is argued that a multi-sectoralcontrol program, targeting social and situational causes of crime, is more successful in reducingviolence in post-war urban communities than a single sector approach. Through a structuredfocused comparison, this hypothesis is tested on three urban communities in post-apartheid SouthAfrica, where high levels of criminal violence were addressed by three different types of crimecontrol. The results show that only the multi-sectoral approach correlates with a reduction ofcriminal violence levels. While the type of control program seems to impact the level of success,there are various other explanatory factors that correlate with a successful reduction of crime, suchas community participation and effective partnerships