The tragic story behind a violent criminal and his R1.2m cost to the state

08 September 2016 - 20:53 By Deneesha Pillay

By the time Chandre Gould met Johannes in prison‚ the cost just to the Department of Correctional Services for his three incarcerations was over R1.2 million - that is just in the daily fees of being in prison. Under the ‘Perpetrator-Centred Violence Prevention’ panel at the International Conference for Preventing Violence‚ Gould on Thursday retold the story of a violent offender she met in prison between 2010 and 2014. As a member of the Governance Crime and Justice Division at the Institute for Security Studies‚ Gould said she interviewed the incarcerated men “with the intention of identifying the factors that contribute to the trajectory of violence and criminal careers”. She found that the men’s individual characteristics‚ their relationships with family untreated trauma‚ and exposure to violence and crime‚ combined with harsh punishment and the absence of supportive adults‚ interacted to inform their use of violence. This is the story of a man she identified as Johannes: The reason why I would like to share this story today is because it highlights the tragedy of violence and not only the collective and individual tragedy of violence but also the tragedy of structural violence -and how structural violence impacts on an individual’s life.The title of my presentation is an isiXhosa idiom – “Inxeba Lentliziyo”‚ and it means “wound of the heart.”Johannes was born in 1974 in Bloemfontein.He lived on a plot where there were four houses where his extended family lived around him.His maternal and paternal grandparents as well as an aunt and an uncle and his mother and father.He was cared for variously by his paternal grandmother and then when she died‚ by his maternal grandmother.And then when she died‚ by his aunt.When I asked him why he had been cared for by his grandparents and not his mother‚ he felt it very important to say that “my mother wanted to breast feed me but she couldn’t because I was a giant baby‚ and she was a tiny slim person”.I find it very hard to believe that he was a giant baby because when I met him he was a very small man.When he was two-years-old his father left his mother and went to go live with somebody else in Welkom‚ many miles away and he didn’t see him again until he was 16.And a couple of years later his paternal grandmother died of natural causes and he was handed over into the care of what became his “beloved grandmother”‚ his maternal grandmother.When he was six‚ like many other children‚ he went to school‚ but he failed his first year at school because he didn’t cope very well.Both his sisters left school variously one at grade six and the other at grade eight and they went off to make their own lives.They had boyfriends and had babies around the ages of 15 or 16 - and that eased the financial burden at home.He said that it wasn’t that they didn’t have food to eat every day‚ they did‚ but it was always financially difficult in the household‚ there was only one breadwinner in the household of many people.And that was his uncle who was a caregiver at a school.At the time when he had started school‚ and he passed his second year of school‚ he felt that he would one day want to grow up to be something like a doctor or a teacher because that would help people.Now whether that is possible in the life of somebody like Johannes‚ or whether that would have been possible had circumstances been different‚ I don’t know.The fact is that he had a sense of purpose; he felt that he could be somebody at that stage. But then tragedy struck: his beloved grandmother‚ while coming back from chemotherapy at the hospital one day‚ was struck down by a mini and killed.Johannes was at school that day and he felt “something” he said and he ran home at lunchtime and the family was gathered in the kitchen and they told him that his grandmother had died.This was a critical turning point in his life.He felt that he wished that he had died in the moment and from there everything went wrong.He was absolutely distraught and he started skipping school until he left school all together.He started smoking‚ he started shoplifting‚ and he started hanging around with other boys who were doing exactly the same.A social worker did visit the family because now he and his sisters were in the care of their grandfather‚ an elderly man‚ who wasn’t very well equipped to look after young children.And she appointed somebody in the neighbourhood to come and feed the children to ensure that they were okay.When I started talking about this‚ Johannes’s sentences started to break down. He became slightly incoherent. He couldn’t tell me what he didn’t like about this person but there was something really bad here.He wouldn’t accept her authority‚ he wouldn’t accept her care and eventually after turning many circles around the issue it turned out that she was most of the time drunk.This just caused Johannes’s behaviour to deteriorate. He said he gave her hell. He would swear at her‚ he wouldn’t listen to her‚ he did everything wrong.In the end‚ in desperation she turned to the court.The court decided in its wisdom to send Johannes to the Porter House Reformatory in the Western Cape.Johannes again didn’t want to talk about what happened there when I asked him.But when I started asking him about the relationship with other boys it became very clear that bullying and violence was central to what was happening at that school.He said: “I showed my manhood even though I was a little boy. I proved I was a man that I was not afraid of those men. They had respect‚ good respect.”He avoided speaking about the bullying and he really didn’t want to bring this up as an issue. But it turned out that by the time he left‚ he was not going to take trouble from anybody and he said that the first time anybody insulted him after he had left the reformatory “he showed them.”He left the reformatory when he was 16 - he spent the best part of 5 years there.And when he came out he saw his father for the first time and spent a Christmas with him and then went back to his home in Bloemfontein.At first he struggled to find his feet‚ we went back into petty crime and he was also smoking mandrax and he was drinking heavily.He got a few jobs here and there and handed out pamphlets at the robot from time to time. But mainly he was earning whatever income he had from petty crime.It wasn’t terribly long before he found himself back in prison.And eventually he told me that he joined the 26 gang.Talking about his crime and talking about his experiences was enormously hard for him mostly because it meant he had to betray his grandmother‚ who he insisted had taught him good manners.And by doing what he did‚ he felt that he had betrayed the love that she had shown him.Once he came out of prison for the second time‚ one afternoon he was at home and there was singing across the road at a tavern. And he said: “The adults like to drink but it’s not their fault it’s become of circumstances‚ he was very concerned that I understood that.He went to lie on the couch‚ before he heard a commotion and he looked out of the door and his aunt was standing at the gate‚ holding a gaping wound in her neck with blood pouring from it.She had been stabbed by a woman who owned the tavern and she died right then and there.Johannes was furious‚ everyone in his life had been taken from him and nobody had been brought to justice‚ not the woman driving the mini who knocked over his grandmother‚ no action against the drunk woman looking after them‚ (not that he mentioned that)‚ no action against his uncle who came home and often beat up members of the family when he was angry.But the people he cared for had died with no consequence at all.Eventually‚ he decided to take matters into his own hands.He again expressed great embarrassment about this‚ but one night‚ he went across the road‚ broke into the house where the woman who murdered his aunt lived‚ found her in bed with his cousin who woke up and chased him out of the house.A few days later‚ drunk again at night‚ he entered the house and this time there was no one to hear her screams as he strangled her with his bare hands.He spent the next ten years in prison and that was where I met him.By the time I met him‚ the cost just to the Department of Correctional Services for his three incarcerations was over R1.2 million. And that is just in the daily fees of being in prison...

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