Last year South Africans were victims of more than 19 000 murders, 52 000 rapes and attempted rapes, 218 000 serious assaults, and 126 000 robberies with aggravating circumstances, among more than 2 million crimes.

Given the fact that only a small minority of crimes result in convictions, certainty about who perpetrates them is lacking, but it appears that victims and perpetrators are usually the same colour. Only a minority of crimes are committed across the colour line. How many of such inter-racial crimes have a racial motive? The question is prompted by the alleged killing in January of four blacks by a white youth in Skierlik, near Swartruggens, in what appeared to be such a crime. But the answer is that we don’t really know.

The most important source of regular public information about crimes in which racial animosity or even hatred is a factor is the Press. However, only a tiny minority of press reports on crime have a racial angle. Racial motives can be assigned by journalists, local communities, friends and relations of victims, trade unionists, politicians, police officers, or prosecutors. All of these may elect to play up racial factors – or play them down.

In some cases racial factors are confirmed by the courts. One of the most shocking examples was the murder of a black man in 2001 by four white Waterkloof teenagers, who were sentenced last year and are on bail pending appeal. Sometimes alleged racial motives do not stand up to judicial scrutiny. In the Scott-Crossley case the Supreme Court of Appeal warned against stereotyping the relationship between farmworkers and their employers. The court found that the victim was already dead when thrown into a lion enclosure in 2004. The court also noted that a witness from the South African Council of Churches had conceded that he had been wrong in his initial view that the crime (accessory after the fact of murder) was racially motivated. Judicial rulings are sometimes attacked. Judge Bernard Ngoepe sentenced two white rugby players to 18 years in prison each in 2002 for killing Tshepo Matloha. But his ruling that he could find no racial motivation was criticised. So was that of Judge Johan Els who in 2004 said he was satisfied that a farmer who killed a worker by dragging him alongside his bakkie had not acted out of racial motives.

Although comprehensive information on the extent to which crime is racially motivated does not exist, the incidence of inter-racial crime seems to be both frequent and violent enough to be fuelling black-white mistrust. Murders on farms are a case in point. It seems clear that most of these crimes take place across the colour line, whether the victims are farmers or farmworkers. Although a committee of inquiry some years ago found a political or racial motive in only 2% of farm attacks, suspicions that this figure is far too low seem widespread. Notwithstanding the appeal court’s warning against stereotyping, it is difficult to believe that the killings of farmworkers reported from time to time would occur if they were white. So also, it is hard to resist the suspicion that the persistent use of the war cry ‘Kill the farmer! Kill the Boer!’ helps to incite murder.

A recent survey found that there was relatively little social contact between black and white. Maybe the possibility exists that for many people the defining contact is that of victim and perpetrator. Where do we go from here? If a racial motive is shown to have existed when a crime is committed, the courts can hand out exemplary sentences. Racist incitement to murder should also be punished.

We should not forget, however, that the great majority of violent crimes have no racial content. This may even be true of violent crimes in which victim and perpetrator belong to different races. That said, there is a risk that the persistence of violent crime at such high levels, and racially-based perceptions about it, will poison race relations irrespective of the extent to which such crime actually has a racial motive. Preventing a deterioration in race relations is yet another reason why the government needs to face up to its responsibilities and get serious about combating crime, period.