By Simpiwe Seti

With the release of the crime statistics in September this year, the spotlight fell on the level of crime in the country. Our seminar came at an opportune time to interrogate the role that local government, in collaboration with the SAPS, can play in combating crime in our communities.

Some of the key issues the seminar aimed to address included:

• Revisiting the constitutionally assigned powers and functions of the SAPS in relation to Municipal Police.
• Exploring both the National and Provincial Crime Prevention strategies in terms of how they articulate the role of local government in crime prevention.
• Unpacking models that have been developed to involve communities in crime prevention such as Community Police Forums (CPFs) and Community Safety Forums (CSFs).

Local government in South Africa is expected to play a greater role in crime prevention in three ways. Firstly,  by establishing metropolitan and municipal police service. Local government has the option of establishing its own police service charged with the function of crime prevention. It is envisaged that such services, while not empowered to investigate crime, will provide visible policing in high-density urban areas. Secondly, by aligning resources and objectives within a crime prevention framework, crime and crime prevention is increasingly seen as central to the planning of all municipal departments, albeit, at little extra cost to local government. Thirdly, through initiating targeted crime prevention programmes. Such crime prevention programmes can either be financially supported by the local government itself or through business, donor or national government funding.

The fact that safety at municipal level has important implications for local economic growth has meant that developing strategies for preventing and policing crime effectively is increasingly a priority on the agendas of local government in South Africa and internationally.

Sean Tait is the Director: Criminal Justice Initiative, Open Society Foundation in Cape Town. In his presentation he provided a review of lessons from local crime prevention case studies that were mainly funded by the OSF but conducted by other organisations. From the review of lessons he concluded that management is critical to the success of crime prevention particularly in terms of mobilising and acquiring resources, skills development and forming partnerships.

Neil Naidoo is a senior manager from the Provincial Department of Safety and Liaison. His presentation mainly highlighted the policy framework for CSFs and CPFs. Ian Bentley of Safrika Development Services, a locally based consultancy, followed on from Naidoo’s input. Bentley outlined the model for CSFs, which are multi-sectoral forums at municipal level aimed at combating crime by amongst other things addressing the socio-economic causes of crime. The model was subjected to some criticism for lacking incentives and sanctions for stakeholders who fail to honour their mandate. However, at a World Conference on Safer Cities held in Durban in 2003 it was resolved that models similar to the CSF model should be rolled out to other municipalities in Africa and around the world.

Steve Terwin is the General Manager: Public Safety in Buffalo City. He shared BCM's experiences in establishing and operating a law enforcement service. He also reflected on their interface with the SAPS and reported that they assist the SAPS on a daily basis in respect of responding to crime scenes, attending to complaints, tracing offenders, attending to motor vehicle accidents, maintaining order at protest marches and public gatherings, and arresting perpetrators of all crimes.

Mthunzi Majikazana is a manager for safety and security volunteers in Nelson Mandela Metro. He presented on their community based anti-crime initiative that was started in 2002. In line with the objectives of the Metro’s Social Crime Prevention Strategy the community-based volunteers help safeguard residents and visitors to the Metro. Volunteers who are part of the initiative have been trained in various life skills as well as professional skills such as law enforcement officers, disaster management, fire and emergency services and traffic control as part of an ongoing skills development plan.

Themba Masuku is a senior researcher within the Criminal Justice Programme at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, which is based in Johannesburg. His presentation provided a background to the establishment of metro police departments and explored the mandate and role of the departments. It also highlighted some of the key challenges facing metro police departments. Some of the challenges identified relate to the crime prevention role of metro police being poorly understood, inadequate information sharing and dissemination between the SAPS and metro police, pressure on metro police from councils and communities to reduce crime within their municipalities.

Ray Maqhutyana is the provincial CPF board chairperson. He reflected on achievements and challenges faced by CPFs in the Eastern Cape. He also outlined key areas of co-operation between CPFs and municipalities, which includes jointly setting crime prevention priorities and reaching consensus on how to implement, and assisting with the development of targeted social crime prevention, mobilising and organising community-based campaigns and activities and the resources required to sustain them.

The seminar provided a good opportunity to reflect on and interrogate the interventions and models used to combat crime in the country. However, there seems to be a lack of co-ordination of the various crime prevention interventions. Even though the roles of both the SAPS and municipal police seem to be clearly defined, co-operation between the two institutions is happening on an ad-hoc basis which could potentially lead to duplication of duties. 

Local Government Transformer Vol. 12 No. 6 Dec 2006/Jan 2007