These prophecies were uttered by professors, priests, teachers, social workers and government commissions; but the remedies were too staggering for those who saw the danger, and too heavy reading for those to whom the danger was remote.
But the danger is no longer remote; the extent to which the controls and restraints have broken down is plain. The newspapers are painful reading especially to those who are in positions of authority, and to those who love South Africa and the peoples in it
Now what are we to do? On certain points all may agree — more police, more non-European police, more pay for police, up-to-date equipment for police; the relatively swift and final segregation of dangerous offenders (in this regard the decision to refer most robbery cases to the Supreme Court is the utmost importance); greater precautions by householders; provisions of greater security by builders of houses.
That will help us a great deal. In particular do I lay stress on the relatively swift and final segregation of dangerous offenders. The important question is not "How long should he get?" but "When will it be safe to let him out?" That is not a question for the courts but for some court-prison-scientist authority, and this implies a fundamental change in our attitude toward offenders.
But deal how we may with native offenders, I must state the brutal truth that we are breeding more than enough native youths to take their places, without ideals or restraints — potentially bad and dangerous men. They are the products of this disintegrating society.
How is this society to be restored? I would be hypocritical if I pretended to examine the idea that new laws, new compulsions, and new penalties (except within certain prescribed limits) might restore the old society. Moral and spiritual decay can be stopped only by moral and spiritual means — by education, by work, by opportunity, by creating conditions in which self-respect and decency and morality may grow again.
