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    The Victim Shall Benefit
    The Victim Shall Benefit
    The Victim Shall Benefit
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    The Victim Shall Benefit

    By Elwyn Meyer

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    About this ebook

    The DEATH PENALTY DOES NOT FEATURE in this campaign at all.

    Highlights from the eBook:
    - The victim will receive monthly compensation for the duration of the perpetrators’ sentence.
    - If there are two perpetrators, the victim will receive additional compensation per month.
    - The Budget for Correctional Services will not be affected.
    - Recidivism will decrease to about 1% from the present 37%.
    - School discipline will improve vastly.
    - Escape is impossible for sentenced criminals.
    - Rehabilitation is made compulsory for sentenced criminals.
    - It is legal and is based on reported cases in RSA and USA.
    - It is the end of gangs and syndicates (including drugs) in 10 years.
    - Crime will decrease by 30% per annum.

    This eBook address the issue of violent crime with a refreshing outlook.
    Realistic suggestions are given to address crime which has risen to alarming levels world-wide.

    Get your copy today!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElwyn Meyer
    Release dateApr 28, 2015
    ISBN9780620620932
    The Victim Shall Benefit

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      Book preview

      The Victim Shall Benefit - Elwyn Meyer

      Chapter One

      This is my reading of the present criminal justice system in South Africa.

      To start our journey through this massive project I am going to use a fictitious case as an example. A journey it certainly is as it is massive with many stumbling blocks to negotiate. This example serves merely as an explanation of how the present system operates.

      The case concerns Lilian, aged 35, who lives in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, with her daughter who is ten years old. Lilian works as a domestic helper in Claremont and earns R1 000 per month. For the sake of future readers, I will use the bread currency. This is the value of a loaf of bread being divided into the monetary value reflected. Lilian thus earns 200 loaves of bread. The present price of a loaf of bread is about R5 at the time of writing the book. She lives in a shack measuring three metres by two metres. Her meagre possessions can be listed on the back of a cigarette-box: a single bed, a table, two cooking pots, one drinking glass, two forks, one teaspoon, one dessert spoon, two coffee mugs, four plates, one gas stove, two woollen blankets, one dress for work, one dress for home and one dress for church on Sunday. The ten-litre water container is nor hers. It is on loan. Her own water container was destroyed in the shack fire two months ago. The gas stove was given to her by her brother last Christmas (after the shack fire the previous November). The Holy Bible (isiXhosa version) miraculously survived both fires. Her employer arranged with the headmaster of the Lulu’s school for the special lower school fee. Lulu also has three ‘outfits’, school uniform, one for home wear and one for Sunday school. Both have only two pairs of shoes. Luxury is reserved for one day a week when the meal includes some red meat, normally Sundays. Lulu looks forward to Saturdays because on that day her mom would buy her one packet of mint imperials being her ration for the week. Lulu is slightly above average at her schoolwork. I suppose she could have been better but she had to change schools when there was no space for them to build their shack after a fire. They had to move after each fire and she had to change schools. She was present when her father viciously assaulted her mother.

      Llian’s neighbour, Gertrude, a slightly-built but strong-willed woman, is deeply involved in the community. She works as a cleaner at various office buildings in the centre of Cape Town. Gertrude is also involved as a shop steward in the workers union and is well-informed about the human rights of every person. In fact, it was Gertrude who told Lilian to have the photographs taken of the injuries suffered during the attack. Gertrude asked one of the reporters of the worker union’s bulletin to do the favour. As there was not much labour issues to cover that Sunday morning, he pitched up promptly at the doctor’s surgery where Lilian as waiting for treatment. Gertrude pleaded and then forced Lilian to go to the SAPS to lay a charge of assault.

      Wilberforce, Lilian’s estranged common-law husband of eleven years, ran out of Lilian’s shack that Saturday evening with his Orlando Pirates tracksuit top clearly visible to Gertrude. His slight limp, normally showing while walking, was now much more exaggerated by his running. He is a qualified plumber by trade and was injured at work by an effluent pipe which fell on his left ankle. He earns about seven thousand rand (1 400 loaves of bread) per month. He was a horse-racing fanatic and most of his earnings were left at Kenilworth racecourse. On the Saturday of the assault he had to leave the racecourse early having only ten rand (2 loaves) left to get home. A friend gave him a lift to Claremont from where he took a bus to Khayelitsha to demand money from Lilian. On the bus with him was a friend of Gertrude’s who asked him why he was going to Khayelitsha. He said that he had to take some money to Lilian. As it was already after five in the afternoon, Gertrude’s friend thought it odd that he would risk going to Khayelitsha and then back to his girlfriend’s place some forty kilometres away in Milnerton. Gertrude had told her that Wilberforce had moved in with his girlfriend at her flat. It would be dangerous travel around late on a Saturday night from Khayelitsha to Milneton.

      As matters went, he actually made it back safely to Milnerton late that Saturday night. He had taken R100 (20 loaves) from Lilian by force.

      At the police station Gertrude did most of the talking. It was late Sunday morning. The blood on Lilian’s left shoulder had already dried and was a dark maroon mess. Lulu, who was chewing nervously on her mint imperials, was also with them. Three statements were taken. Gertrude paid for them all for the taxi fare to the surgery and the police station. They felt elated as they were walking home with a spring in their step animatedly discussing their victory.

      Then the waiting and the waiting began. It was long. Although the police had taken down his address, Wilberforce had a friend in the police who would inform Wilberforce of any impending arrest at his girlfriend’s flat. Wilberforce paid for this luxury. Four months after the assault he was finally arrested. He appeared in the Mitchell’s Plain Magistrates Court on the Monday for the first time. Gertrude, Lilian and Lulu were present. The case was postponed for a bail application. Bail was granted for an amount of R600 (120 loaves). After the bail application, there were four more postponements due to outstanding forensic evidence. Fourteen months after the assault Wilberforce was sentenced to four years effective incarceration. The sentence was for twelve years, but due to the perpetrator’s ability to be an exemplary inmate, he would have two-thirds of his sentence reduce to parole.

      The outcome for the three others involved in the case (Lilian, Gertrude and Lulu) would be going back to an existence that, materially, has not changed at all. The only benefit Lilian received was that she was safe from him for four years. He may even come back after four years and do the same or even worse, murder her, and then disappear completely. As a trainer of plumbing in the correctional facility he would have been training inmates with the concomitant benefits of special conditions of incarceration. He would also be used by the correctional facility for emergency plumbing repairs late at night.

      The other three will be saddled with the same excruciating day-to-day struggle to eke out an existence. This system reviewed in here allows the government to spend R125 (25 loaves) per day on Wilberforce. The tax money spent on Wilberforce is R179 580 for the four years. For all their efforts, the other three will receive nothing from the state. The perpetrator benefited. This has to change.

      Chapter Two

      But this project will scare the hell out of would-be offenders.

      The present criminal justice system has been in operation for hundreds of years. Ours is derived from the Common Law, Roman Law, Roman-Dutch Law and some British Law. It is also constructed from laws passed by the different Governments of this region, be it the Boer Republics, the Cape

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