Children as young as the age of 14 were arrested on gang-related murder charges. In 2013, 12% of the 2,580 murders in the Western Cape were gang-related, which was an 86% increase from 2012. The Globe is often cited as the first gang in Cape Town but started as a neighborhood watch in District Six. Former multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town, such as District Six, were either purged of unlawful residents or demolished. This is due to the breakdown of social control of the inner city, which caused severe unemployment, poverty and social marginalization. In the 1960s and 1970s, Coloured residents of Cape Town started forming gangs in the Cape Flats and other non-white areas. This caused an increase in poverty and unemployment in Black and Coloured communities, most notably amongst those in the Cape Province (modern day Western Cape, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape) where Coloureds were and are still the largest racial group. Gangs rose to prominence in South Africa as a result of the Group Areas Act, which evicted “non-white” South Africans from their homes and resettled them in rural and underdeveloped areas far from urban and economic centres. Cape Town has between 90 and 130 gangs with the South African Police Service stating a total estimated membership of 100,000. This includes cities like Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg. Many South African gangs began, and still exist, in urban areas. The history of gangs in South Africa goes back to the Apartheid era.
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