Government Commissioned Report Cites Christopher Stone’s Research on Crime and Small Business in South Africa

Important research on the impact of crime on small business in South Africa, authored by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Christopher Stone, director of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, is being heard by the nation’s leaders in Pretoria.

“The Impact of Crime on Small Businesses in South Africa,” a new report commissioned by the South African Presidency, references Stone’s 2006 Working Paper, “Crime, Justice and Growth in South Africa: Toward a Plausible Contribution from Criminal Justice to Economic Growth.”

Stone’s research, conducted as part of the South Africa Growth Initiative at the Center for International Development, focused on the costs of crime to business and the perception of violent crime. He proposed a “cyclical process of iterative innovation in which government seeks to solve narrowly circumscribed crime problems, and then leverages each success to generate wider hope and confidence in the criminal justice system.”

In response, the government report specifically cites Stone’s comparative study on home-based enterprises in low-income settlements in fringe areas outside capital cities in South Africa and Ghana.

“In Mamelodi, 40 percent of households have at least one home based enterprise …Businesses produce monthly income roughly equal to the minimum wage, and over 90 percent are operated by a sole proprietor or by family members. Fear of crime is pervasive. Shops close early, and business is conducted mainly indoors and often behind screens,” the report states. “Madina, in contrast, while providing the same range of home-based enterprises, experiences very little crime. Many enterprises are busiest after dark when the streets are full of people, and opera-tors often store their goods outside, with little fear of theft.”

The government report calls for community based approaches to creating a safer and more profitable environment for business, citing small business’ “potential to bring millions of people out of poverty into the mainstream economy.”

Christopher Stone is Daniel and Florence Guggenheim professor of the practice of criminal justice and director of the Kennedy School’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. His Working Paper is part of the South Africa Growth Initiative at the Center for International Development. The project is an initiative of the National Treasury of the Republic of South Africa within the government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (ASGI-SA), which seeks to consolidate the gains of post-transition economic stability and accelerate growth in order to create employment and improve the livelihoods of all South Africans.