South Africa’s police are losing the war on crime – here’s how they need to rethink their approach
By Guy Lamb - Criminologist / Senior Lecturer, Stellenbosch University
South Africa’s
crime statistics for the third quarter of 2023 show that people continue to face a serious problem of violent crime, especially murder and attempted murder. The country’s
per capita murder rate for 2022/23 was the highest in 20 years at 45 per 100,000 (a 50% increase compared to 2012/13).
In response to this crisis, the South African Police Service has reconfigured its
policing strategies and plans. Yet, these approaches offer very little innovation. They mostly reaffirm the way the police have typically pursued policing for the past three decades – fighting a
“war” on crime and
“sweeping away” criminals.
In my view the police have adopted unsuitable crime fighting strategies. This is a “war” the police can’t win on their own, because violent crime is a
complex phenomenon. It requires
whole-of-government and
whole-of-society approaches. Government departments, civil society groups and the private sector should pool resources and
work together in a co-ordinated manner. They must be guided by a common plan. Otherwise crime prevention efforts will be piecemeal, lacking effectiveness.
Determinants and complexity of violent crime
The scholarly literature on violent crime in South Africa, including
my research, indicates that interpersonal violence is typically the outcome of a combination of risk factors over time.
One of them is the idea that violence is a legitimate means to resolve conflict between people.
Socio-economic elements, such as poverty, unemployment and inadequate living conditions, underpin violence, mainly for
younger men. Feelings of stress, frustration and humiliation, combined with substance abuse (chiefly alcohol), inequitable gender norms and the availability of weapons, especially
firearms, often results in violent behaviour.
Given what studies say about the determinants of violence, I predicted during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that South Africa would soon face a
crime catastrophe. The pandemic and lockdown regulations had increased poverty, unemployment and food insecurity. This would exacerbate existing risk factors for violence, such as:
- domestic abuse
- learners dropping out of school
- diminishing prospects of meaningful jobs, especially for young, marginalised men.
In 2021/22 there was a significant
increase in all categories of violent crime.
Police and the prevention of violent crime
Even though the police are
not able to do anything directly about many of the underlying risk factors for violence,
studies have shown that specific policing interventions can make a difference in reducing violent crime.
The police can work closely with communities to devise
cooperative solutions to crime problems. They can also collect and use relevant
intelligence to design and implement
evidence-based crime prevention actions. These should focus on the areas where criminal offending is most
concentrated, and on the
situations that tend to drive that behaviour.
Since the 1990s the work of the police has included community-oriented approaches.
Best practice is for police to treat community safety groups as equal partners. Solutions to crime problems are
co-created.
There is very
little evidence to suggest that militarised policing brings down violent crime rates. Instead, it can erode public trust in the police. This is certainly evident in South Africa, where only
27% of the population view the police as trustworthy (from 47% in 1999).
Police effectiveness in combating crime has also been undermined by
declining personnel numbers. In 2018, there were 150,639 police personnel, but this is now 140,048. There has also been a substantial decline in the
police reserve force.
High levels of crime have placed
considerable pressure on the criminal justice system too. Conviction rates for violent crime are very low. For example, between 2019/20 and 2021/22, police recorded 66,486 murder cases. Of these, only 8,103 (12%) resulted in a guilty verdict.
What can be done?
The good news is that the government does not exclusively depend on policing plans to tackle crime. It has also developed multi-departmental and evidence-based strategies and plans to prevent crime. These are derived from Chapter 12 of the
National Development Plan. It calls for:
- police to be more professional, demilitarised and work in partnership with communities
- an improved criminal justice system
- an integrated crime prevention strategy.
In 2022 the cabinet approved the
Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy. It seeks to achieve a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach given the multi-dimensional nature of the risk factors that drive violent crime. Furthermore, this strategy encourages government and other elements of society to jointly address common crime problems and collaboratively determine prevention strategies, especially at the community level.
There was also the recognition that various government departments (and not just the police) needed to work closely with civil society and the private sector to drive down crime levels.
The problem is that the implementation of strategy is in limbo. No government agency has been willing to take responsibility for it. That’s because there is no direct budgetary allocation, given the highly
constrained government purse.
High levels of crime and low levels of policing have substantial
negative effects on economic performance. So investing adequate resources to carry out the Integrated Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy will not only reduce violent crime, but also contribute to economic growth.
This article previously appeared on
The Conversation, it has been re-published on JoburgPost.com with permission.
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