In recent months, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula expressed concern about the seriousness and the violent nature of some of the crimes committed in our country.

In recent months, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula expressed concern about the seriousness and the violent nature of some of the crimes committed in our country.

He was echoing similar concerns frequently raised by the public about the gratuitous violence that characterises many crimes.

Only last week, robbers had sauntered into a police station in Pietermaritzburg's Msunduzi police station, with chilling nonchalance. One of the robbers whipped out a gun and blasted an officer at point-blank range, killing him in the station. They then stole guns and fled, leaving the public in a state of shock over their sheer display of impunity.

Days later our nation was to be jarred again by the brutal murder of City Press editor Mathatha Tsedu's son, Avhatakali Netshisaulu, who was found murdered in the boot of his burnt-out car in Nooitgedacht last Thursday.

It is the sheer gruesomeness and barbarism underlining the incident that invoke both a sense of utter shock and despair.

Gradually emerging is a pattern of sickening criminal tendency to imprint a grisly signature on crime - in much the same way as a serial killer leaves a strand of telling signs. Criminals are simply no longer satisfied with robbing their victims of their belongings and then leaving them alone - eerily they now tend to take their victim's life as a trophy.

Is our society becoming a petrified witness to an intensifying cycle of violence which could be likened to an overheating engine? The call is for us not to drop our guard or become too desensitised to crime to the point of apathy.