Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of History Workshop Journal (2009)
Who Killed Meyer Hasenfus? Organized Crime, Policing and Informing on the Witwatersrand, 1902–8
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Abstract |
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For three decades, dating back to 1886, the gold mining industry at the heart of South Africa’s industrial revolution underwrote a social structure in which men outnumbered women to an alarming degree. This imbalance spawned a trade in commercial sex which for many years was dominated by Russo-Polish gangsters. The prevalence of ‘organized vice’ posed a dilemma for successive governments, which sought to retain the appeal of prostitutes in labour markets characterized by shortages of male workers while simultaneously seeking to eliminate the worst excesses of organized crime. This already delicate balance was upset after the South African War (1899-1902) when London Irish and Cockney Jews arrived to contest the hegemony of East European underworld elements. As part of an effort to infiltrate ‘foreign’ Russo-Polish gangs, the Milner administration resorted to the use of informers, thereby further inflaming conflict between East European and ‘English’ gangsters. The economic downturn of 1906-8 set the stage for a tragedy culminating in the death of an informer, Meyer Hasenfus. But amidst all the complexities it became exceedingly difficult to determine culpability and several independent-minded prostitutes, led by a woman centrally involved in the Hasenfus case, used the moment to stage a revolt and cast off the yokes of their pimps. The death of Hasenfus marked a turning point in the history of local crime.