Violent crime in South Africa has remained persistently high since the end of apartheid in 1994. Almost 16,000 murders at a rate of 31.9 per 100,000 of the population in 2010/11 attest to this. Violent crime remains a concern for government and has led one independent observer to describe South Africa as ‘a country at war with itself’ (Altbeker, 2007). This article argues that South African criminology has struggled to come to terms with the often brutal reality of the post-apartheid condition. Drawing on a notion first used by Young (1986) in relation to 1960s Britain, it suggests that stubbornly high rates of violent crime have given rise to an aetiological crisis in South African criminology. An analysis of the origins and nature of this crisis evident in recent writings on violent crime in South Africa is offered against the background of international debates about what criminology is for. A solution to the crisis is sought in work that connects history and biography (Mills, 1959) to reveal the causes, meanings and uses of violence, and point the way to a more relevant post-colonial South African criminology.