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SA needs smarter policing, says study

CRIME statistics for 2009-10 strongly indicate that SA does not need more policing, but smarter and more accountable policing, a recent research paper by the Institute for Security Studies argues.

The statistics, released in September, showed a national overall increase in crime — comprising five categories including commercial crime and business burglaries.

The institute’s senior researchers, Johan Burger and Chandré Gould, and crime and justice programme head Gareth Newham welcomed Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa ’s statement in October that he aimed to improve partnerships between the police, business and communities .

They said effective partnerships required trust and the sharing of information and it was important that crime statistics were made available to the public regularly so that communities could make effective use of the information and work with the police in a meaningful manner.

Statistics that are released in September are usually six months out of date.

The researchers said there had been substantial increases in the number of police officials since 2003, but organised, violent crime remained unacceptably high.

These were the crimes against which effective policing strategies were most effective.

Since 2003, police management has recruited more than 60000 officers, and aims to increase South African Police Service numbers to more than 200 000 in 2010-11.

Between 2004 and last year , the police budget increased from R22,7bn to R52,6bn. On Monday, 4993 recruits reported at various training colleges nationally to begin their two-year training.

The researchers said although it would be reasonable to expect that the increase in the police budget and personnel numbers should have a corresponding effect on those crimes shown to respond to improved policing — such as house robbery, business robbery and car hijackings — this had not been the case.

However, t hey said the police alone could not carry the blame for the sustained high crime levels .

Police case docket analyses showed that the victims and perpetrators were known to each other in 70%-80% of murders, 60% of attempted murders, 75% of rapes and 90% of assaults, they said.

"Approximately 65% of murders were associated with ‘social behaviour’ such as drug and alcohol abuse … Policing can have little or no effect on these kinds of crimes."

This article applies to: Middle, Rontree 1, Rontree 2, Glen, Bakoven, Village, Clifton, CPF