OSCAR PISTORIUS:  My lady, that’s the moment that everything changed. I thought that there was a burglar gaining entry into my home. I was overcome with fear and I started screaming, shouting for the burglar or intruders to get out of my house. The thing that ran through my mind was that I needed to arm myself, that I needed to protect Reeva and I, that I needed to get my gun.

Oscar Pistorius shot four times into a door, killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. He claims his life was in danger. It's a defence that's renewed debate about the links between violence, race and inequality, in a society that has one of the highest crime rates in the world. As you drive from the city centre to the affluent suburbs, it's clear the country is still deeply unequal and divided and people live in fear and behind high walls and security guards.

REPORTER:  Hello. How are you? Have a nice day.

MAN:  Thank you.

I've been invited into a gated community to hear why 24-hour protection, electric fences and automated shutters are a normal part of everyday living.

ROB SMITHER:  I think if you don't live in an element of fear, I think you're being naive. My grandmother, who was roughly 86 years old, was raped and murdered at the age of 86. When I decided to come back to South Africa, having been an ex-pat, I took a fundamental decision. But the key driver behind the decision was simply security, you know – you want to sleep well at night.

Rob's neighbour moved to this gated community after they were robbed at gunpoint. But even here they feel a need to keep their guns close.

HANKIE VOGEL:  A shotgun here and I have a pistol here and of course I have ammunition inside and also outside of the safe, in case of emergency. I realised what was happening and it was basically an armed person with a gun against my wife's head. It was an easy decision for the family to move into a gated area.

ROB SMITHER:  If you think you can drive around here and not look over your shoulder every five to 10 minutes and see if someone is following you, something will happen to you. At some point, something will happen.

When you hear traumatic stories like these, it's easy to understand why people choose to live in a virtual fortress.

DR JOHAN BURGER, INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES AFRICA:  I think the fear of crime in South Africa is a very legitimate fear. The facts absolutely support that. Media reports on the brutality of some of these attacks support this fear.

But does that fear tap into something deeper? The subtext of the Oscar Pistorius case, according to Margie Orford, is white South Africans' fear of black crime.

MARGIE ORFORD, JOURNALIST AND CRIME WRITER:  It is a threatening body, nameless and faceless, of an armed and dangerous black intruder. It's so clear that his claim to fear was baseless. So what was it then? It's something in all of us, in all white people. You need to look at it. You need to unpack it.

These two boys are cousins and they're literally thick as thieves. At 19, they've already lost count of how many houses they've robbed together. It's estimated half of the population lives below the poverty line. 70% of those under 35 are out of work like Ben and Ben.

BEN:  When I look forward and see these houses, I see that these guys are rich. They have everything that we need. If we can go inside here, maybe we might get a safe or something. When I see these guys I just see money.

BEN:  You have to know the places, the angles, which side the security guards are, where the dogs are, you have to know which side the motion sensors are, things like that, the alarm, make sure you don't trigger it.

BEN:  There's no food at the house. My mother cries all the time, "Why can't you find a job?" I try, I try to get a decent job but I can't, I can't you know, I can't. Because whenever I try to get a decent job, these people want so many things. They want IDs, they want certificates. I don't have any of those.

The two Bens have broken into gated communities but confess the focus of their crime is actually in their own township.

BEN:  I say if I keep committing crimes, something bad is going to happen.

In reality, most gated communities experience very low crime rates, including the one where Oscar Pistorius lived. And yet the fear of home invasions is the greatest concern among South Africans.

DR JOHAN BURGER:  Generally people are not so much afraid of murder as such. To be attacked by armed intruders and you are helpless. You have to rely on the goodwill of these criminals to survive the attack and for your family not to be seriously harmed. So that I think is the biggest fear of people in South Africa generally speaking.

Pistorius used a nine millimetre similar to this to shoot and kill his girlfriend, Reeva. It's not easy to buy a gun in South Africa. You need certification and you can't get a licence unless you own a house or business. But there are plenty available on the black market and a lot of guns used in home invasions are stolen in break-ins.

REPORTER:   When you go into the houses it is also possible the person in the house will have a gun?

BEN:  Exactly. Those are the kind of places we find guns, in houses. When you break into someone's house, if you are with your friends and you are going somewhere and you have a gun, you just feel like you are the boss, you can do anything you want with a gun, you know. You could even rob someone daylight in front of people watching they won't do a thing because you have a gun.

There are strict rules in South Africa governing the way guns are used, rules that have been raised in the Oscar Pistorius trial.

MARGIE ORFORD:  You can only legitimately shoot at someone if they are attacking you and they are armed. There are very strict rules around self-defence which Pistorius knew. He had done his gun licence testing, he knew that. It's been very interesting to me he's finally been sent for psychiatric assessment because whatever the motivation - the fear or the rage - that to me was indicative of a severely disturbed way of relating to the world. What was even more disturbing is that the bulk of South Africans, particularly white South Africans, thought that response was normal.

The social and economic reasons for crime in South Africa will be difficult to untangle. The court will decide whether Reeva Steenkamp was killed in a tragic accidents or murdered in an angry rage.

Reporter/Camera 
LUKE WATERS

Producer 
BERNADINE LIM

Fixer/Additional Camera
ZAHEER CASSIM

Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
SIMON PHEGAN