Jail the hungry, protect the wealthy – Corruption is not a victimless crime

SOUTH Africa lives with a contradiction that we often pretend not to see: we do not have a single justice system. We have two. The first is fast, harsh, and designed for the poor. The second is slow, cautious, and endlessly negotiable, a luxury reserved for the powerful.

Walk into any magistrate’s court on a Monday morning. You will see shackled young men arrested for shoplifting food, for stealing copper to sell for taxi fare, for taking a cellphone to pawn for rent. These are “survival crimes,” born not of greed but of hunger and unemployment. Their cases move quickly. Bail is often unaffordable. Sentencing is swift. Jail time is normal.

Contrast that with the treatment of those who steal millions or sometimes billions through public procurement fraud, tender manipulation, financial engineering, or outright looting of state institutions. Their crimes destroy hospitals, schools, water systems, and trust in government. Yet they arrive in court flanked by senior counsel, not shackles.

Their cases stretch for years through postponements, review applications, and “technical challenges.” They are never rushed. They are rarely imprisoned. Some have the leisure to fight extradition from abroad, funded ironically by the proceeds of the very crimes they deny.

The message is clear: if you steal to eat, the law will catch up with you. If you steal to enrich yourself, the law will negotiate with you.

Corruption is not a victimless crime. Each act of grand corruption is a violent, redistributive blow against the poor. Stolen billions are looted from public funds; the consequences are not abstract, they are felt in the clinic with no nurses, the school with no textbooks, the township with no water, and the young person with no job. Corruption does not just erode trust; it destroys life chances.

Yet no national outrage is sparked when the corrupt evade justice. We reserve our moral fury for the impoverished who break the law to survive, not the affluent who break the law to dominate.

A young man can serve years in prison for stealing groceries worth R200. Meanwhile, a well-connected tycoon accused of draining millions from a contract can delay prosecution for years without spending a night in jail.

This is not justice. It is the weaponisation of law against the powerless. South Africa’s justice imbalance is not accidental. It is engineered through four reinforcing forces:

• Resources – The wealthy can afford elite lawyers, experts, and legal delay tactics. The poor get duty counsel and plea deals.
• Complexity – Crimes of poverty are simple to prosecute. Crimes of corruption are structurally designed to be obscure.
• Political protection – When corruption networks overlap with party networks, accountability becomes a negotiation, not a principle.
• Public tolerance – We have normalised the idea that corruption cases take “as long as they need,” while ordinary crime must be punished immediately.

The result is a justice system that is procedurally equal but substantively unequal. The Constitution promises that “all are equal before the law.” But in practice, all are equal except those who are not.

No society can survive if it teaches citizens that the law is optional for some and oppressive for others. People do not obey laws they believe are illegitimate. The young man jailed for bread knows the businessman who stole millions is playing golf. That knowledge is corrosive.

We speak endlessly about crime in South Africa, hijackings, robberies, violent crime, yet we never acknowledge that grand corruption is also a form of violence, just slower, more polite, and performed in suits rather than balaclavas.

The looter in a boardroom is no less dangerous than the looter in a convenience store. One steals today’s goods. The other steals tomorrow’s future.

The country does not lack laws. It lacks political will, prosecutorial capacity, and a public insistence that those who steal from the nation must face the same urgency as those who steal from a supermarket. It is time to end the polite fiction that corruption is complicated and petty crime is simple. Both are crimes. Both destroy lives. Both demand accountability.

The poor should not carry the full weight of criminal justice while the rich float above it. South Africa does not need a new justice system. It needs one justice system where the hungry are helped before they are punished, and the powerful are prosecuted before they are protected.

Until then, the slogan is not “equal before the law.”

It is justice, but only for those who can’t afford to escape it.

* Nyaniso Qwesha is a writer with a background in risk management, governance, and sustainability. He explores how power, accountability, and innovation intersect in South Africa’s landscape.

** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.

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