IT’S JUST NOT WORKING
By Regan Jules-Macquet
Introduction
Two publications have come out recently, directly and indirectly suggesting that the current South African Police Services’ (SAPS) crime prevention strategy is for a number of reasons just not working. The authors are Anthony Altbeker, author of the book “A Country at War with Itself: South Africa’s Crisis of Crime” and Dr. Johan Burger, who is a Senior Researcher in the Crime and Justice Programme at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) who published the article “Time to take action: the 2006 / 2007 crime statistics”.
This blog provides an overview of the key points of the two documents, as well as some reflections
SAPS Annual Report
On some level, SAPS appears to sense that all is not going according to plan. Their latest annual report indicates that some of the crime stats have gone down from previous years, but they were seriously high to start off with, and show no sign of declining at a sustained and significant rate. The rest of the crime stats are on the increase.
This is after some serious funding was spent on criminal justice, and every year the number of police members increases.
The 2006 / 2007 SAPS annual report provided an analysis of the nature of social crimes -which the police imply they cannot prevent, because victims and perpetrators know each other and the SAPS cannot police the close relationship - and on the influence of urbanisation, poverty, unemployment, vigilantism, repeat crimes and substance abuse on crime, none of which the police have any real influence or control over.
The impression created by the report is that a great deal of crime is, ultimately, beyond the control of the police. One starts to wonder: if that is the case, why are we spending so much money on crime prevention?
Why does the budget vote for the Department of Safety and Security increase every year, for example, if the police cannot significantly reduce contact crimes?
Dr. Burger puts it like this: “the only real proactive contribution the police can make in this regard is by creating a credible deterrent through effective and efficient investigations”
But things get more curious still. Because, if it is the SAPS’ opinion that the most serious crimes are actually beyond their control, then why is it that the same report highlights the fact that the police have set themselves a measurable target for reducing the social contact crimes by 7 – 10%.
On the one hand the police are saying that this sort of crime is not something they can control and, on the other, they seem to be saying they will be able to reduce it.
Which is it?
SAPS programmes
This confusion manifests itself in the kinds of programmes the SAPS have adopted.
Should SAPS prevent crime through high levels of visible policing and schemes like adopt-a-cop, or should they deter crime through greater arrests and convictions secured through good detective work?
Do they prevent crime or do they set about ‘bandit catching’, as Altbeker puts it.
They simply do not know which of these two approaches to follow.
This may sound like the most basic of observations, but the truth is, it is crucial.
Unless you know what your function is, you cannot know what types of equipment to buy or programmes to run; how many people you need, or what kind of people and training are required. You don’t know what targets to set yourself or how to measure your success.
You need to be clear on what your job is. If you are not, then you run from pillar to post doing this, trying different things and wondering why you are not achieving much.
This is the commonsense approach to job function, but it seems to have passed a lot of people by. Crime prevention through visible policing and community relations is one thing; bandit catching is another.
To be a successful bandit-catcher you need inf
| Posted on 2/11/2007
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