Research design

The research conducted for this study was designed to provide answers to two questions:

The research was conducted between 22 August and 15 October 2000. Starting with a detailed scan of the legislation, policy and other documents relevant to the development and implementation of community policing in South Africa, the research continued with a series of interviews with police management and CPF practitioners at the provincial, area and police station levels.5 At the provincial level, 56 structured face-to-face interviews were conducted in each province with:

the provincial Commissioners;


the provincial Heads of Crime Prevention;


the provincial Heads of Detectives;


the provincial Community Policing Co-ordinators;


the provincial Service Delivery Improvement Programme Facilitators;


the chairpersons of the Provincial Community Policing Board; and


the heads of the provincial Department for Safety and Security or Liaison (the secretariats).

These interviews were conducted with the counterparts of the provincial SAPS and CPF respondents at 45 police stations spread over all the provinces, and the 32 area offices these stations report to.

The 45 stations were selected via a two-stage multi-level cluster sampling technique. This was based on the number of provincial priority stations as a proportion of the total priority stations; the nine priority stations identified by the Office of the President (one per province); and the rank of the station commissioner—which, given the formula used by the SAPS to determine the appropriate rank of a station commissioner, serves as a proxy for the size of the station and as a proxy for population density.

The 45 police stations report to 32 area management offices, which were automatically selected following the identification of the stations to be studied.

Table 1 indicates the stations selected for the study and the area offices to which they report.

Table 1: Police stations and area offices selected for the study

KwaZulu-Natal	Free State	Gauteng
16 stations – 4 Areas	7 stations – 3 Areas	6 stations – 5 Areas
Nqutu – Ulundi	Park Road – Southern FS	Alexandra – JHB
C.R. Swart – Durban	Botshabelo – Southern FS	JHB Central – JHB
Mtubatuba – Umfolozi	Thabang* – Northern FS	Brooklyn – Pretoria
Inanda* – Durban	Meloding – Northern FS	Katlehong* – East Rand
Amanzimtoti – Durban	Bethlehem – Eastern FS	Benoni – North Rand
Port Shepstone – Umzimkulu	Phuthaditjhaba – Eastern FS	Orlando – Soweto
	Ficksburg - Eastern FS
Eastern Cape	Western Cape	Northern Cape
8 stations – 5 Areas	5 stations – 4 Areas	2 stations – 2 Areas
Idutywa –	Gugulethu –	Upington – Gordonia
Queenstown	West Metropole	Galeshewe* –
Tsolo* – Umtata	Mitchell's Plain* –	Diamond Field
Umtata – Umtata	West Metropole
Kamesh – Uitenhage	Delft – East Metropole
East London – East London	Worcester – Boland Knysna – Southern Cape
Bisho – East London
Motherwell – P. Elizabeth
Walmer – P. Elizabeth
Mpumalanga	Northern Province	North West
3 stations – 3 Areas	4 stations – 3 Areas	4 stations – 3 Areas
Embalenhle –	Warm Baths – Bushveld	GaRankuwa – Marico
East Highveld	Pietersburg – Central	Mogwase – Marico
Kanyamanzane* –	Nebo – Central	Mafikeng* – Molopo
Lowveld	Thohoyandou* –Far North	Klerksdorp – Mooi River
Witbank – Highveld
(* indicates a Presidential priority station)

Table 2 details the respondents at each police station and at area level.

Table 2: Police station and area office respondents

Police station	Area office
The Station Commissioner	The Area Commissioner
The Head of Crime Prevention	The Area Head of Crime Prevention
The Head of Detectives	The Area Head of Detectives
The Community Policing Co-ordinator	The Community Policing Co-ordinators
The Service Delivery Improvement	The Service Delivery Improvement
Programme Facilitators	Programme Facilitators
The Chairperson of the local CPF	The Chairpersons CPF Area Board
270 interviews scheduled – 229 conducted	198 interviews scheduled – 169 conducted

The small deficits in reaching the target number of interviews are attributable to a range of factors. These included:

Personnel were in the process of being appointed to some of the relevant posts. The field teams sometimes found that a particular officer had left, or had been promoted out of a position, and that a replacement had not yet been appointed.



The officer was away on sick or study leave.



The functions of the Service Delivery Improvement Programme (SDIP) facilitator and the Community Police Co-ordinator were shared by a single officer in some instances. He or she would obviously be interviewed only once.



Interviewees were sometimes unavailable or were called out of interviews because of operational duties.



Some CPF representatives did not make themselves available during the time the field teams were in their localities, often because the chairperson of the CPF was away. In some instances the CPF was dysfunctional and without leadership.

In addition to interviewing police officers and members of the CPFs, three public surveys were conducted. These consisted of:

a general community perception survey, in which 13 659 respondents residing within a 10km radius of the 45 selected police stations were interviewed;



an exit poll, in which 2 286 people who had been into one of the 45 selected police stations were questioned as they left the police station; and



a follow-up survey, in which 1 361 people who had reported an incident to one of the 45 selected police stations within a 3-month time period were interviewed. Thirty dockets were randomly selected from those available at each of the selected police stations, and the complainants in those dockets were contacted either by telephone or, in instances where a selected complainant did not have a telephone, at home.

Demographic detail of the community surveys is outlined in the following tables.

Table 3: Number of respondents in each province

	Community survey		Exit poll		Follow-up survey
	n	%	n	%	n	%
Eastern Cape	2 419	18	401	18	241	18
Free State	2 134	16	361	16	240	18
Gauteng	1 842	14	311	14	184	14
KZN	1 835	13	301	13	181	13
Western Cape	1 500	11	248	11	150	11
Northern Province	1 205	9	201	9	118	9
North West	1 195	9	208	9	96	7
Mpumalanga	927	7	155	7	91	7
Northern Cape	602	4	100	4	60	4
Total	13 659	100	2 286	100	1 361	100

Table 4: Gender of respondents

	Community survey		Exit poll		Follow-up survey
	n	%	n	%	n	%
Male	7 386	54	1 234	54	780	58
Female	6 255	46	1 046	46	575	42
Total	13 641	100	2 280	100	1 355	100

Table 5: Race of respondents

	Community survey		Exit poll		Follow-up survey
	n	%	n	%	n	%
African	10 545	77	1 814	80	919	68
White	1 519	11	196	9	264	20
Coloured	1 319	10	248	11	145	11
Indian	255	2	25	1	23	2
Total	13 638	100	2 283	100	1 351	100

Limitations of the methodology

This methodology is limited by two factors.

First, the decision made by the SAPS to focus the study on a sample drawn only from the priority station areas. The priority stations themselves were selected because they record high crime rates or because they fall within one of the communities targeted by the Presidential Urban Renewal Initiative. This means that these stations are likely to have been the focus of dedicated attention from police management for some time. Further, because of the crime rate and the attention from police management, SAPS personnel in these stations are likely to face greater pressure to deliver a quality service to the public than personnel in those stations not affected by such serious rates of crime. Further, community role-players in these areas are also more likely to be actively engaged in issues of crime and policing.



Second, the research focused on the views about community policing and service delivery of the primary role-players and, in the community surveys, on public perceptions of the police. It is therefore possible that respondents' perceptions may present a picture that is either better, or worse, than the reality.

These two factors limit the ability to generalise the results of the research.

However, the study does provide a representative analysis of the implementation of community policing, the views of the primary practitioners on that implementation, as well as the views of the public on police services in the priority station areas. Also, given the diverse range of areas and police stations accessed in the study—and the fact that there was significant input from provincial role-players, the issues raised in the monograph may well have relevance for the implementation of community policing across the country.