Jamii ya wahalifu. The growth of crime in a colonial African urban centre: Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, 1919-19611

Abstract

This article contains a description of the growth of a ‘modern’ criminal culture in Dar es Salaam under British rule. It provides an analysis of the possible causes of increasing criminality in colonial Tanganyika: including urbanisation, shifting definitions of criminality arising from state intervention, the penetration of the cash nexus and economic differentiation. The growth and changing shape of property crime in the city are outlined, as are the emerging criminal networks that helped foster this phenomenon. This is followed by a discussion of the nature of those individuals engaging in crime, assessing the extent to which a ‘professional’ criminal type emerged. Neither the incidence or nature of crime in colonial Dar es Salaam were particularly grave, however, it is hoped that as an example of locally unprecedented forms of criminality emerging in a novel (colonial) socio-economic context the article will be of comparative use to historians of crime elsewhere in Africa and further afield.