This article "Captain happy with sentences for rapist gang" penned by Tankiso Makhetha highlights, among other things, how the scourge of rape is a manifestation of other bigger probably systemic problems facing our country, problems which seem to be aggravating in the recent decade or so.

Denial, obfuscation, deflection, philosophising, diversion, scape-goating, rationalising or looking the other way will not conceal the harsh reality most honest living South Africans have to contend with almost daily, i.e. that our country is being plagued by many forms of increasingly rampant crime.

From the brazen plundering of our country's strategic public infrastructure e.g. electricity pylons, railway lines cabling, telecoms networks, traffic lights cabling, siphoning of fuel from state-owned underground distribution pipelines to social crimes like rape, to name a few. Some of these crimes were unheard off in our beautiful country before.

My guess is that the steady rise in the number of secured residential complexes and corresponding increased consumption of private security services, with armed response, bears part testimony to how some people are choosing to safeguard themselves in the face of the rising tide of crime.

It is not unlikely that a significant section of the population may be instrumental in this crime phenomenon, one way or another, in our pursuit either of crass materialism or an easy life of quick economic gains, all this seemingly a growing part of our new culture.

Please convey my heartfelt gratitude to Capt Thomson Bvuma of the Krugersdorp SAPS. He is proof that there are indeed competent and dedicated officers. He has brought the community of Tshepisong unimaginable relief from misery. Notwithstanding these difficult circumstances, it is people like Capt Bvuma who give me hope.

Thapelo Lehasa, Protea North