As a child I had very limited exposure to crime. I guess those were the days that children were seen and not hurt. Crime was an adult topic of conversation and I can't remember my parents ever really discussing it.
When I cast my mind back I can remember one instance that occurred when I was somewhere between 10 and 12 years old. We were staying in a large house in Yeoville - a suburb of Johannesburg. The house was on the corner of two roads and there was a wall around most of the street sides of the property. They were not high walls - most likely only about 2 or 3 feet high.
My mother had left her handbag on a chair or a table that was close to the main entrance to the house - the front door. The door was open and we were all in various parts of the house. Someone came through the gate, onto the property, up the path onto the veranda and entered the door, stole the handbag and left. I only heard about it years later.
When I was 11 my sister had a birthday party - she was 12 - and it included loud music and lots of her friends. Some bikers tried to gatecrash the party and my father had to call the police. This was the height of excitement for me but by today's standards it was very tame!
The next incident I remember as after we had been living in Natal for some time. I can't recall how old I was but my father had a small transistor radio which was always in the lounge. When we had been out one day, someone broke into the house through a window in the lounge and stole the radio. The police reacted quickly to that and a few days later had caught the perpetrator who subsequently was tried and sent to prison.
We had no burglar bars on our house in those days. No alarms. No infrared sensors and no tall walls or fences with razor wire and electric fencing. We would feel safe and secure in our house without any deterrents to miscreants whose unlawful activities invaded the lives of others.
As far as I knew the criminal had been caught and sent to jail and so our tranquil suburb was crime free!
How time have changed!
I was standing in our kitchen over this weekend looking out onto the street our home is situated on. I realised that I was peering through glass that was segmented into different small panes by a burglar guard. A few meters further on was a security gate with an expensive electric lock on it. From the security gate to the perimeter fence was a few meters of paved ground with only knee-high shrubs in the garden beds. The fence has spikes on the top of it and the electric gate has features that makes it difficult to lift it off its runners to gain unauthorised access to the property.
I looked to the other side of the road and saw the neighbours walled property - a wall more than 2 meters high - and then their house with its small squares of glass because of the the burglar guards on the windows. To get into their property you also go through an electrically locked gate. The doors are also (as are ours) secured by security gates which add another level of safety.
How times have changed!
We leave in a peaceful and quiet suburb of Pretoria - peaceful and quiet by today's standards but what a sharp contrast to what I was used to when I was growing up!
In my young days, crime was hardly ever heard of.
In my early adult years I knew people who knew someone who had been a victim of crime.
Now I not only know people who have themselves experienced various different types of crime, I myself and my family have been victims of it.
One of my colleagues had the experience last week of dropping his nephew at school and having to suddenly shield him and other children from a shooting that was taking place at the school. In this case, the victim died a short while later - before an ambulance could even get to him. The shooter had taken the life of his victim. He has killed 3 others previously.
The police eventually caught the perpetrator who will stand trial at some stage. I hope the justice system sees justice done!
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