Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how South Africa – a country confronting high rates of violent crime – aims to create systems for the empowerment of victims of crime, with the long-term goal of creating ‘a more caring society’.1 The paper first discusses how the impacts of crime stress the psychosocial fabric of society, thereby obstructing human and social functioning. It furthermore illustrates how attending to the needs of victims of crime enhances crime victims’ chances for re-asserting emotional self-control – as a prerequisite for * Friedrich W. Affolter is a graduate of the Center for International Education [CIE] of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He served as the UNODC Victim Empowerment Capacity Development Expert from 2008–2010. He is now the Education Cluster Lead for UNICEF Sudan. Email: friedrich.affolter@gmail.com 1 Department of Social Development [DSD] (2009), “Foreword”, in Annual Report for the Year Ended 31 March 2009 (Pretoria: Internal Communication and Acumen Publishing Solutions), p.3.