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Defensive sharp aloe plants, along with a wall topped by an electric fence are part of household security in the suburb of Houghton. This sort of extreme security is a response to the threat of crime and violence and has become part of the urban architecture of suburbia in contemporary South Africa. Recent figures show that armed robbery is displacing burglary so as South Africans invest more heavily in target hardening, so predators are prepared to use more violence to penetrate those targets. The bitter irony is that these increasingly innovative barricades to protect their property have made their owners more, not less, exposed to violent crime in a country which has the second highest per capita murder and assault rate in the world and the highest rate of rape. (Photo by Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images)