The Hammermen: Life and Death as a Gang Hitman in Cape Town
| Author | MARK SHAW,LUKE LEE SKYWALKER |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12185 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
The Howard Journal Vol55 No 4. December 2016 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12185
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 377–395
The Hammermen: Life and Death
as a Gang Hitman in Cape Town
MARK SHAW and LUKE LEE SKYWALKER
Mark Shaw is NRF Professor of Justice and Security and Director, and Luke
Lee Skywalker is a PhD candidate and researcher, Centre of Criminology,
Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Abstract: Contract killing and hitmen are underexplored in criminology. Recent studies,
including an ongoing project in South Africa, have examined a large number of individ-
ual cases relating to contract killings, producing a series of typologies of hitmen. Despite
this thematic ordering, few empirically-based studies – incorporating interviews with hit-
men themselves – exist, especially given the practical and ethical issues involved. Such
information remains essential, however, to more clearly understand the socialisation and
criminal careers of contract killers. Our subjects occupy a specific place within the gangs
of Cape Town: they are ordered to kill for gang bosses as well as being recruited by external
parties to conduct ‘hits’. On the basis of seven interviews with ‘hammermen’ and two with
senior gang bosses, we explore the experiences of gang-associated hitmen. We conclude
that the current literature, by seeking to identify a series of typologies of contract killers
that focus mainly on their level of ‘professionalism’, provides only a one-dimensional
and – in some respects – stereotypical picture of the realities of contract killing. Instead,
we show that hitmen occupy an ambiguous and tenuous position within local gangs and
gang culture: essential to the security of gang bosses, but also a threat to it as a result of
what they know and what they do. As a result, ‘hammermen’ express a surprising degree
of vulnerability, and may themselves be subject to assassination.
Keywords: contract killing; gangs; organised crime; South Africa
The causal factors for inter- and intra-gang-related forms of violence in
Cape Town stem from a complex intermeshing of historical and contempo-
rary factors, including a surge in local drug use and the resulting struggle
for control of local drug markets since the early 1990s. Gang violence has
significantly impacted on ordinary people’s lives, most notably (and notice-
ably) in several marginalised so-called ‘coloured’ communities on the city’s
periphery.Here, people e xpress a strong fear of gang-related violence and
are often forced to pay for the protection of themselves and their property
(University of Cape Town Centre of Criminology 2015). Gangs exist in,
and relate to, these communities in many, sometimes contradictory, ways.
They are, for instance, both drivers of violence and fear and providers
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2016 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol55 No 4. December 2016
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 377–395
of social services and security, and can, given their historical roots, be a
source of community pride; gangs in the context of Cape Town are there-
fore products of ‘history, identity and necessity’ (Jensen 2010, p.81; see
also Pinnock 1984).
Our objective is to explore one aspect of these dynamics, and the
violence associated with the city’s gangs, by attempting to isolate and in-
terview a set of individuals who act on behalf of the gangs in carrying
out targeted killings. We aim to build on a relatively small pool of liter-
ature that has predominantly focused on the sociology and economics of
contract killing, an issue that has not been considered widely in crimino-
logical literature. Our work on this subject in relation to the Cape Town
gangs is part of a South Africa-wide study on contract killing. While con-
tract killing is by no means the main source of murder in South Africa, it is
surprisingly prevalent. An estimate based on cases reported in the media
suggests that it is at least equivalent to the number of people recorded
as having being killed in xenophobic violence, regarded as a serious local
issue.1More broadly, a study of some 1,000 cases over a 16-year period
also shows that murder has become much more ‘commercialised’ over time,
both in the sense that killing may be used as a tool to provide a leverage in
several legal and illegal markets and as a commercial transaction that takes
place with someone who is ‘contracted’ to kill (Shaw and Thomas 2016).
Gang-related assassinations within the Western Cape fit this general trend.
The wider South African study follows a similar methodological frame-
work to those found in several other studies of contract killing (MacIntyre
et al. 2014). We are, however, conscious of the fact that the collection of data
on what were reported to be contract killings in the media, or as reported
from court proceedings, could not fill what we considered to be a gap in
the literature: understanding who the hitmen are and what role they play
in particular criminal economies.
We proceed as follows. First, we briefly introduce the changing pat-
terns of violence and gang activity in Cape Town. Second, we provide an
overview of the literature on contract killing more generally so as to place
this work in relation to other studies. Third, we review the methodological
challenges. Fourth, and in the main body of the article, we examine several
themes that emerged from the interviews themselves. We conclude with a
summary of the argument and some pointers for future research.
Cape Town’s Evolving Gangs and Targeted Killing
While the role of hammermen for Cape Town’s gangs is not new, tar-
geted violence between, and within, gangs has grown in recent years. It is
impossible to identify the number of murders in the city that have been
perpetrated by paid killers. What can be demonstrated is that the number
of reported murders increased by around 60% over a ten-year period, with
steep increases in the last five years (as illustrated in Figure 1). While not all
of these can be laid at the door of the city’s gangs, an important proportion,
at least in the view of the police and from our own experience of working
in the city, are gang related, and gang-related conflicts, particularly over
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2016 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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