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Chapter 6
Impact of the Community Policing Policy: The SAPS' View
Despite the reservations expressed by police respondents regarding effective implementation of the community policing policy, and the general dissatisfaction with the perceived lack of support for implementation, most of the SAPS respondents were clear that the policy had a positive effect on the manner in which they performed their functions.
Seventy-two percent of station SAPS respondents and 80% of area SAPS respondents said that the implementation of community policing had improved:
- their approach to, and interaction with the community;
- the development of a sense of shared responsibility for issues of common concern; and
- the development of greater trust and mutual accountability between the police and community.
However, 23% of SAPS station respondents and 20% of area SAPS respondents indicated that implementation of the policy had resulted only in more meetings, and had not affected the way they performed their functions. The main reason given by these respondents was that they had always sought positive interaction with those they served, and had always adopted a consultative approach.
In answering a different question, though, 82% of station SAPS respondents and 77% of area SAPS respondents said they believed that implementation of the policy had resulted in improved services being delivered to the public at station level.
The provincial SAPS respondents indicated that they too had derived benefit from the implementation of the policy, indicating that community policing had brought about a new, interactive, service-oriented approach to policing in which the police sought co-operation rather than confrontation.
However, here too a minority of respondents indicated that they had experienced no real change, and that they were policing in much the same manner as they had always done.
The provincial secretariat respondents were most positive about the impact the policy had had on the police. These respondents said that, despite weaknesses in the implementation of the policy, their experience had shown that implementation of the policy had contributed to making the police more accessible, more consultative and more service-oriented than they had been in the past.
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