Chantelle Benjamin
4 December 2008
Johannesburg — THE government has failed to fulfil its constitutional obligations to address crime and public security, according to a study by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) that is to form the basis of a court action by civil rights organisation AfriForum.
The study commissioned by AfriForum, an initiative of trade union Solidarity which forms the backbone of a legal challenge to compel the government to review its crime policy, looks at a series of government strategies and legislation from 1996 that have failed.
It also looks at the failure to set up alternative safety structures before disbanding rural commando units.
AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said the study confirmed what AfriForum suspected: "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."
Kriel said the report would be handed to AfriForum's legal team of Wim Trengove and Kate Hofmeyr, with the instruction that they look at ways that the report may be used to take legal action against the government. "Once the government is called to account in public, the sense of urgency which to date has been absent ... will be added."
ISS head researcher Johan Burger said the study had reviewed a series of government policies and concluded that "it had failed to develop and implement an overarching national security strategy that would effectively address the security threat against the people of SA", due to a lack of either political will or a real understanding of the issues.
As crime was the greatest threat to national security, Burger said, it was not unreasonable to assume the government would develop a national initiative bringing together all departments. "Instead, we got the National Crime Prevention Strategy ( in 1996) that put all the emphasis on the police."
It failed largely as there was no authority driving it no other ministers would take directions from safety and security and it had no allocated budget. It was also more policy than strategy, with no guidelines on implementation, Burger said.
The white paper on safety and security compounded the problem. It did not recognise that the strategy was being implemented only by the safety and security sector, largely the police, and its goals included "altering the environment in which crime occurred", over which the police had no control.
The National Crime Combating Strategy in 2000 was meant to set in motion a joint operation with departments including health, water affairs, the social cluster, justice and correctional services, but Burger said there was no sign that the initiative produced real results.
The research found the government had failed the rural community in particular in promising there would be no vacuum after commandos were disbanded. They were to be replaced by sector policing, reservists and area crime combating units.
Research in Clocolan, Free State; Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal; and Krugersdorp, Gauteng, found the new units were functioning poorly in some areas and not at all in others, and were moved hundreds of kilometres away, making timely intervention impossible.
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