The thing about community justice is that it comes in various forms of action.

In South Africa, crime prevention tactics involve everything from casual strolls in neighbourhoods – complete with walkie-talkies and bright orange bibs – to blowing a whistle to alert neighbours when in trouble.

Once apprehended, however, treatment is very similar: physical violence is adopted until the suspect is handed over to the police.

Seeing justice take this form, one wishes there were alternatives. However, as the crime in South Africa increases and police presence declines, more and more people are taking matters into their own hands.

Take the community of “the small enclave of Felixton near Richards Bay” as an example. According to TimesLive, “an Empangeni Farm Watch security official was called to the area after a neighbouring community chased a suspected rapist into a sugarcane field”.

The suspect was armed with a panga, and the community allegedly threatened to set the field on fire to drive him out:

The security company uses canines to assist officers in their duties and a dog managed to track the suspect in the field within minutes.“Before we could arrest the suspect or load him in our vehicle‚ approximately 100 people from the community descended on him‚ took him from us and began to beat him‚” said Farm Watch’s Larry Erasmus.

Empangeni police meanwhile have condemned the incident.

“Communities cannot go around and think they are the law‚” the paper quoted Empangeni SAPS spokesman Captain Mbongeni Mdlalose as saying.

“If the man was suspected of having raped someone‚ we as the police will deal with him. It is our job.”

Mdlalose also said police would investigate allegations that SAPS members were on the scene but “did nothing” to stop the attack.

Here’s the violence that went down:

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident and occurs daily in communities around the country. When people feel like the government and the police are letting them down, violence in response to violence seems the go-to response.

Take for example this video posted earlier, also on TimesLive:

This chilling scene played out on Monday‚ as angry residents of Dwarsloop village in Bushbuckridge‚ Mpumalanga‚ took the law into their own hands and threatened to bury a man alive.

Tumelo Dibakwane‚ who captured the moment in a cellphone video clip‚ said the police arrived just in the nick of time to rescue the man as the mob prepared to douse him with petrol and turn him into a human torch.

The same man was allegedly caught and beaten by residents‚ twice‚ in the past three months after they suspected him of breaking into homes.

“They caught him before but … this time they said that they were tired of beating him‚” Dibakwane told TMG Digital on Tuesday.

“Someone was suggesting they put petrol on him and burn him. If the police were late by five minutes‚ they had the petrol‚ someone managed to get petrol. The garage was just a few metres away‚” said Dibakwane.

That’s truly frightening.

[sources:timeslive&timeslive]