Gangs rose to prominence in South Africa due to the Group Areas Act, where rural residents were forcefully migrated. This caused an increase in poverty in coloured communities. In the 1960s and 1970s, coloured residents of Cape Town started forming gangs in Cape Flats and other areas. This is due to the breakdown of social control of the inner city, which caused severe unemployment and social marginalization. Former multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town, such as District Six, were either purged of unlawful residents or demolished. In Johannesburg in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, many African communities were relocated and resettled, in Soweto in the Meadowlands and Diepkloof. Western Soweto complained of severe crime and juvenile delinquency during the 1960s. By the early 1960s gang violence escalated, which was counteracted by police action. In 2013, 12% of the 2,580 murders in Western Cape were gang-related, which was an 86% increase from 2012. Children as young as the age of 14 were arrested on gang-related murder charges. In 2019, 900 people have been murdered in the first half of the year in communities in Cape Flats in the Western Cape.
Typology
The Safety Lab has identified four distinct categories that Cape Town based gangs can be divided into: street gangs, crews, cliques, and prison gangs.
Street gangs
The largest and best known gang type in Cape Town are the street gangs that are mostly associated with poorer coloured communities. They tend to have hierarchical command structures and are thought to derive most of their income from the illicit drug trade. In Cape Town the two largest gangs are The Americans and the Hard Livings which function as umbrella organisations for many smaller gangs that are allied with the two super gangs. Smaller gangs in Cape Town that might be allied to one of the two larger umbrella gangs include Young Dixie Boys, Clever Kids, Naughty Boys, the Junky Funky Kids, Respectable Peacefuls, Wonder Kids, School Boys and Yuru Cats.
Prison gangs
s in South Africa consist mostly of the Numbers Gangs, a grouping of prison based gangs named after the different numbers they are named after; namely the 26s, 27s, and 28s. These gangs tend to be highly structured with strong hierarchical command structures and high levels of organisation.
