Crime and taverns... relatives?

The Monday after all the groups in our Journalism 3 class had their community meetings, each had to present their projects to the class. A common thread was noticeable in the presentations. The prevalence of alcohol and/or taverns in the incidence of crime in the groups’ respective areas was evident in most presentations.

In Hoogenoeg, a teenager interviewed on camera expressed concern in that most crimes take place when people get drunk and in the taverns in the area. Another interviewee from Vukani who has been raped four times told that the first time she got raped was when she went to a tavern.

In our work we tried as much as possible not to instutionalize the tavern as a crime breeding place but rather focussed on the idea of how a tavern is supposed to be a place where people come together and hold conversations, make friends and alleviate themselves of their daily problems for a short while but instead, it is tearing communities apart as people start fights, break into houses and rape neighbours as they leave taverns late at night. Hence, we decided to look at what taverns mean to the communities, the levels of safety and since our target audience are school kids, we looked at alternatives to alcohol consumption such as starting a community dance project. The television documentary focussed on the prevalence of taverns in these communities and how they became hotspots for crime in the area. One of the audio slides profiled a mother and son looking at what the mother is doing to instil discipline in her son and keep him away from the crime out on the streets.

Therefore, our group identified and followed through with this common thread finding that discipline needs to be instilled at a very young age and this is the responsibility of the parents and that kids need to acknowledge the crime levels in the in areas in order to actively keep away from it, hence our relationship with Tantyi Primary School. We hope that next year’s groups will build on our research and initiatives- especially at the school.