National Crime Prevention Strategy
Interesting piece given that South Africa has been one of the few (only?) governments to develop a comprehensive strategic long term plan for crime prevention, and now they're saying it failed:
Speaking at a seminar on the state response to the crime problem, senior researcher Johan Burger said that he was "adamant" that the strategy had failed.
He said this was because socio-economic problems such as unemployment, poverty, lack of education and the absence of adequate social services - which were considered the biggest threat to national security - had not formed part of the overarching strategy.
"If a national threat, why not a national strategy?" said Burger.
"It shows that government is not performing in terms of its Constitutional mandate."
He said the "depressing" lack of conviction, commitment and support to implement the NCPS had also been its downfall.
Phenomenon not unique to SA
He said while there had been a positive downward trend in crime it had been at a slower rate than recorded in 2002/2003 to 2005/2006. This raised legitimate concerns about why it had decreased especially since the police force had expanded in numbers.
He said however that this was not a strange phenomenon unique to South Africa.
"It's all the police's fault, the sooner we grasp this truth the better... It just proves that increasing the police's numbers is not going to solve the crime problem."
He said police claimed that most murders and social contact crimes - which have shown a decrease but are still high above the international norm - were committed by people who were known to the victims.
According to the police, a relatively high number of these crimes happened in residences, normally beyond the reach of conventional policing.
"This implies the police can do little, if anything, to prevent these particular types of crime," Burger said in the report.
Commandos
The phasing out of the commandos had also left a security vacuum.
Senior researcher Henri Boshoff said it was most worrying that the commandos were closed down even in places where there was almost no substitute in place.
"Rural areas were left particularly vulnerable in a view of the importance of the commandos for their security and the rural Protection Plan, built around the commandos, is for all practical purposes defunct."
He said in terms of government's promise to increase personnel it had been able to expand police numbers by about 30 000 over the last five years.
"As far as other aspects of the replacement promise are concerned, however, government directly or indirectly... failed to keep its promises," said Boshoff.
He said it was not a matter of re-deploying commandos at this stage but sector policing - if implemented properly - could fill the security vacuum.
Civil rights initiative AfriForum, which had approached the ISS to undertake the independent study, said it would be taking legal steps against the government.
"The ISS report now provides a scientific basis on which the government can be held accountable in court for its neglect to combat crime effectively," said CEO Kallie Kriel.
He said he had handed the ISS report to a legal team with the instruction that they should look into ways it could be used to take the government to court.
posted by John Allore @ 1/06/2009 06:57:00 PM
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