This report documents the outcomes of a short term project undertaken by Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute for the conflict
and Governance Facility, a joint funding facility for the European Union and the South African national Treasury . The aim of the
four month project was to interrogate whether South Africa’s current policy on social assistance, namely social grants, could be said
either to actually or potentially mitigate against or foment dynamics of conflict and social exclusion within poor communities in South
Africa .
The project consisted of four parts: a policy review and a legislative overview of social grants policy and implementing legislation,
a quantitative analysis of the demographics of South Africa, quantitative descriptions of grant recipients, as well as statistics on
crime released in July 2007 by SAPS (the South African Police Service) , and a brief international literature on the subject of crime,
sketching an overview of theories of criminology, theoretical models of crime and various approaches to the subject, both historically
and currently .
Full Download: Working Paper No. 2 – Social Grants and Crime in South Africa – A preliminary exploration studies in poverty
