The Challenge of Policing Rural Crime

The crisis in Richmond, increasing farm attacks and violence in areas such as Tsolo and Qumbu, suggest that the criminal justice system in rural areas desperately needs to be improved. The approach to policing here differs from that in urban centres. In particular, the distribution of police personnel and resources, and how to conduct investigations and secure convictions in these areas need focused attention.

With crime levels as high as they are in the country’s urban centres, it is unsurprising that sustained attention is not paid to crime in rural areas. But in the interests of medium to long term security, this is a mistake. A clear symptom of this is the increase in attacks on farms in recent months. It is true that group clashes in Tsolo and Qumbu cannot easily compare with farm attacks in Mpumalanga. But the geography of the rural environment, the socio-economic status of most of its inhabitants, and police responses to crime in these areas, present common safety challenges. Unless rural crime prevention is considered in the broader context, responses will remain ad hoc, will cost the state dearly and are unlikely to be sustainable.

Why consider rural areas?

There are good reasons for being concerned with the welfare and safety of the country’s rural population. Nearly half the people in South Africa live in rural areas, which constitute a vital source of income and livelihoods to millions of South Africans. Of equal importance is that poverty affects those living in these areas more than any others: 72% of the country’s poor are rural.

This profile has less relevance for how much crime happens in rural areas, than for the impact of crime when it does strike, and the resources available to both law enforcement agencies and civil society in these areas, to respond and to provide protection.

When people have few means to secure themselves and their property, and limited access to social services and state institutions, the effects of crime and violence are profound. And as if poverty is not debilitating enough, the police cannot be relied upon for protection either: resources in rural areas are scarce, even where crimes like murder top local police priorities.

Some of the obstacles

Bulwer police station in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, just one among many examples, has become known for its poor working conditions. Police officers can hardly take leave because of staff shortages: in January 1996, the station was understaffed by 61% and in May 1998, by 69%. Officials drive police vehicles 90 kilometres to Himeville for petrol — although the station has two fuelling points, both were broken in May 1998 and officials were waiting for the authority to have them repaired. As part of Project Lifeline, initiated by Business Against Crime, the station was identified as one of eleven to be upgraded. Appeals to improve conditions in Bulwer have been made by the Community Police Forum, the Ratepayers Association and the media since 1996. More recently, requests to SAPS at provincial and head office in Pretoria have resulted in few changes.

Geographical isolation, lack of transportation, limited criminal justice personnel and resources create special challenges in providing effective policing and justice services. Rural police officers must adapt to situations in which the necessary equipment and resources to perform normal policing functions are unavailable. Many stations in KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Province, for example, have no mortuary vans or stretchers. Bodies, often collected many hours after the time of death, are wrapped in blankets and transported in the back of a bakkie.

Understandably, the government is faced with the challenge of distributing scarce resources across a large country where crime rates vary dramatically across areas. Although there is more crime in urban areas than in rural areas, there are some inequalities in the distribution of resources.

For example, the average number of civilians per police official for the country is 321 (see Crime Index no 2, 1998). Of the 14 rural stations studied by the ISS in KwaZulu-Natal, 13 had population to police ratios of over 1000. At 48 648 people per police official, Tugela Ferry in the midlands had the largest people to police ratio of the stations studied. Here only one police station (where 37 members had access to only six working vehicles in May 1998) serves a population of nearly 2 million people living in a vast area of 1470km2 — an area renown for its violent faction fights and murders. This can be compared with nearby Nquthu police station, where the population to police ratio is 3835 for an area of 240 km2 and 14 of the station’s vehicles were operational.

The nature of crime in these areas also presents particular challenges. Crimes that predominantly affect rural areas such as stock theft, witchcraft, and ‘faction fighting’ require special detection and investigative skills which many officials lack. And those that are capable are often rendered ineffective by lack of transport. The terrain in rural areas can provide cover for criminals and hinder police work. It also adds to the cost of policing: in Nquthu in KwaZulu-Natal, it took police three days to search 10 houses because police could only access the vast area on foot. This kind of policing requires an intimate knowledge of the place and its politics.

Effective policing and crime prevention necessarily suffers under such conditions. In allocating police resources in rural areas, the use of crime statistics needs to be approached with caution. Some statistics, like those related to illegal drug use and possession, depend on proactive policing for detection. In rural areas, patrolling and crime prevention more generally are almost non-existent. Statistics for crimes like domestic violence, child abuse and rape are similarly unreliable: contrary to official figures, fieldwork indicates that these offences are a problem in rural areas.

Sipho Ntuli and Antoinette Louw,
Institute for Security Studies