Over the past few days, social media has been abuzz with discussions about the death of a suspected drug dealer following a confrontation with crime-busting show, Sizok’thola, which airs on Moja Love, DStv channel 157. Widely popular Sizok’thola, which translates to “we will find you”, is hosted by Xolani Khumalo, who, along with anti-crime forums and community policing units, confront suspected criminal syndicates that are responsible for a reign of terror in communities.

The suspected criminals are concerned and demanded to surrender their contraband and weapons, most of which are illegal firearms. Many South Africans, fed up with the mind-numbing crime levels in the country, tune into the show on Sunday evenings to watch Khumalo, a man who is seen by many as a new-age hero.

Last week, Khumalo and an anti-crime forum went to confront a suspected drug dealer, Robert Varrie, who was allegedly subjected to severe beatings by members of the community policing forum after he initially refused to hand over his drug stash. It is reported that he subsequently agreed to hand it over. Whether this happened or not is unclear. What we do know is that Varrie was later rushed to hospital where he died from the injuries sustained in the alleged beating. Siyaya TV has communicated that it is investigating the incident while awaiting the police investigation and an official autopsy.

Many people on social media have come out in support of Khumalo and the show, with hashtags such as #IStandWithXolani going viral. It appears that for many, the death of an alleged drug dealer, no matter what circumstances it happened under, is not something to be mourned but rather celebrated.

Such sentiments are understandable. The South African Police Service is losing the war against crime, and the most recent crime statistics is the evidence. In just the first three months of the year, 6,289 people were murdered while 6,192 cases of attempted murder were logged.

In the same period, 13,205 sexual crimes were reported, with 10,512 of these being rapes. 40,619 burglaries were committed at residential premises. But more significantly, 42,309 drug-related crimes were recorded. That’s an average of 470 drug-related crimes every day. All this is happening while conviction rates for all categories of crime remain painfully low. Under such circumstances, it stands to reason that Varrie’s death would not be mourned, and why there’s an exponential increase in mob justice across the country.

But in our frustrations with the failures of the criminal justice system, we must be careful about celebrating vigilante justice. We’re normalising the very lawlessness in which criminality flourishes. There’s no bottom in the well of vigilantism and we saw this a few months ago when four Eskom contractors were brutally killed in Germiston by residents who mistook them for cable thieves.

A year ago, e-hailing taxi driver, Abongile Mafalala, was also killed in Grassy Park after being falsely accused of kidnapping children. Numerous other cases of innocent people being subjected to mob justice have been reported. Beyond the killings of innocent people, mob justice also breeds trauma in those who participate in it as well as those who watch it happen. Some of these are children and the wounds of this kind of violence stay with them. Later, as adults, they bleed on people who didn’t cut them, because violence begets violence.

Our best shot at dealing with drug-related crimes in particular is to target the alleviation of poverty, hunger and unemployment. This requires partnerships between government, the private sector and civil society. Anything other than such a systematic intervention will lay the foundations for lawlessness. Mob justice might be the quick solution, but it sets parameters for genocide.