Cable Theft is Sabotage

Sent Tue 02/08/2011 08:12, Published in The Star (Johannesburg, South Africa); August 3, 2011 as “Rather charge cable thieves with sabotage” without the parts in blue.

The Star of 1 August carried a front-page report about brazen cable theft.

Catching these thieves is difficult because of the speed of the crime, but there is another incentive to doing it.

If the criminal is caught, he will be charged with theft.  This is a lesser crime than robbery, where violence or the threat of violence is involved.  The police will expend less energy in investigating the case, reducing the chance of conviction.  If convicted, the so-called thief will get a short sentence.

Consider now the effect of cable theft. Suburbs are plunged into darkness.  Thousands of lives are disrupted. Businesses can not function.  Huge amounts are spent on backup systems.  Communications halt.  Emergency services fail.  In cases like railways and traffic lights, people can die.

The cost of cable theft to society is completely out of proportion to the benefit to the criminals, yet they continue to do it.

It is time for the criminal to pay the real cost.

Cable thieves are deliberately harming the country.  They should be charged, not with theft, but with sabotage.  Put them away for twenty years and give the police an incentive to make more arrests.

Scrap-metal dealers who buy sabotaged cables must be charged as accessories to sabotage.

Businesses should also pursue class action civil cases to recover their real losses from the convicted saboteurs and their accomplices.