Community crime prevention:
How to make it work

Published in Nedbank ISS Crime Index
Volume 3 1999
Number 6, November—December



Crime can be reduced if approached systematically. At town and city level, the key is to develop a crime prevention strategy that focuses on a few problems. The National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS), with the support of the CSIR and Institute for Security Studies (ISS), will soon be releasing a manual to help local governments formulate such a strategy. Making South Africa safe: A manual for community based crime prevention is an important contribution to fighting crime. Extracts from the manual are presented here.

Crime prevention is not a ‘soft option’. It is about combining the efforts of those who enforce the law with those who prevent people from committing crime in the first place.

Crime prevention involves responding to a few priority problems using several different types of approaches. These approaches aim to address the causes of, and opportunities for, particular crime problems. Crime prevention is also about ensuring that laws are enforced and that fear of crime is reduced.

The concept is not radical or even that new — many organisations and several local governments have been practising crime prevention in one form or another for some time in South Africa. Some of the local governments that are developing or implementing crime prevention strategies include: Greater Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban Metropolitan Councils, Cape Town City Council, Highveld Ridge Transitional Local Council in Mpumalanga and Uitenhage municipality.

If the factors that result in a crime being committed are considered, the logic behind this approach is clear. Crime is usually caused when three things happen: there is a willing or vulnerable victim (or target), a willing and able offender, and an environment (or location) which is conducive to committing an offence (i.e. there are few police officers or other security personnel, the area is unlit or deserted, etc.) (Figure 1).

To reduce crime, something needs to be done about all the factors illustrated in the example above. In the case of the robbery in Figure 1, the police could patrol the area, and — if called to the scene of the crime — arrest the youth. With the assistance of the police, the courts could convict and sentence the offender.

But improving street lighting, planning the layout of the parking lot and where the shopping centre is situated, cutting the long grass, providing shoppers with information about how to prevent victimisation and dealing with the youth’s drug habit and school absenteeism cannot be undertaken by law enforcement agencies. These are functions of local government, local business (in this case, the owners of the shopping centre) government departments like welfare and education, and the community.

The principle behind a crime prevention strategy is to engage the assistance of all those who can (and should) help to solve a crime problem. Because no single agency is responsible for all the elements that cause crime, a joint effort is needed. This is what is referred to as the ‘partnership’ approach. Partnerships bring together those who have something to contribute.

Who should lead?

The departments of safety and security and local government have written policy that devolves responsibility for planning and implementing crime prevention programmes to local government. (There is however no reason why other organisations such as community police forums, business or even the local police should not initiate a strategy.) Developing a crime prevention strategy will require:
  • leadership and management skills
  • the ability to co-ordinate a wide range of activities
  • the ability to stay involved for at least a year
  • contact with the community
  • funding
Local government is best placed to meet most of these requirements:
  • Many of the day-to-day services that local government is responsible for are key to preventing crime. Better delivery of these services, or delivery that takes into account crime prevention principles and crime problems in the area, can in itself help.
  • Local governments are responsible for developing their communities and must respond to the needs of the people they service. If security is a key issue for the residents of an area, the council cannot ignore the problem.
  • Through elected counsellors, local government is more representative of the community than other structures at local level.
  • Recent legislation allows local governments to establish a municipal police service. The ability of such as service to reduce crime will be substantially boosted if its activities are aligned with a safety strategy for the whole area.

Planning and implementation

Successful crime prevention programmes are based on simple solutions that target a few problems. The key is planning. The NCPS crime prevention manual outlines four phases which cover the planning and implementation of a strategy in detail. The phases are:

Phase 1

Conduct a community safety audit

Step 1: Identify crime problems by collecting information from various sources

Step 2: Identify who is already involved in crime prevention activities

Step 3: Analyse the social and physical characteristics of your area

Step 4: Decide which problems are most important

Step 5: Make sure you understand the causes of the priority problems (in order to find the right solutions)

Product: Analysis of crime, area and organisations already involved
Phase 2

Develop a strategy

Step 6: Select and group the priority problems into focus areas

Step 7: Identify possible solutions (projects) in each case

Step 8: Identify possible partners that can assist in refining and implementing projects

Step 9: Select the most suitable projects and refine them

Step 10: Obtain support (from council, provincial government, local police) for the projects that have been selected

Product: A crime prevention strategy
Phase 4

Monitoring and evaluation

Step 13: Make sure you have planned and budgeted for monitoring and evaluation

Step 14: Ensure that you have well defined project objectives

Step 15: Identify ways to evaluate your project’s performance

Step 16: Establish a framework for evaluation and carry it out

Product: An indication of what works and what does not and the cost implications
Phase 3

Managing and implementing your strategy

Step 11: Develop a project plan with goals, a time schedule and budget

Step 12: Ensure you have resources for project management

Product: Implementation of strategy

What local government can do


Many of local government’s core functions, such as roads, electricity (in some cases), town planning, protection and maintenance of facilities like parks, forests and recreational assets as well as buildings and properties, have a role to play in preventing crime. However several important elements of crime prevention are not core functions. Health, education, welfare, policing and courts, for example, are the responsibility of higher levels of government. Involving these levels of government in crime prevention is vital.

For local government, activity can take place at three levels:

Level 1:

Improve existing council functions such as by-law enforcement, traffic policing and council security.

Some examples:
  • Enforcing municipal by-laws that control land invasion, street trading, littering etc.
  • traffic police: enforcing traffic laws and providing visible patrols.
  • assisting the South African Police Service with joint operations, patrols and searches.
  • setting up a municipal police service for by-law enforcement, visible patrols, traffic violations, arrests.

Level 2:

Align local government functions and services with crime prevention principles. The aim is to ensure that council contributes towards reducing crime by realigning functions and encouraging co-operation between departments.

Some examples:
  • Urban design departments can ensure that crime prevention through environmental design guidelines are considered in all urban planning.
  • Emergency services can assist in making referrals or disseminating information to victims of crime.
  • Licensing departments can tackle corruption and the trade in stolen cars.
  • Sports, culture and recreation can develop more appropriate recreational facilities in targeted areas of need.

Level 3:

Start new crime prevention projects with the assistance of partners. This involves activities that go beyond local government functions.

Some examples:
  • Work with provincial education departments, local police and NGOs to secure school environments and develop school completion programmes for high-risk youth.
  • Implement CCTV with assistance of local business and private security firms.
  • Work with local police, liquor retailers, shebeen owners and schools to control the sale of alcohol and drugs to underage youth and to regulate shebeen operations.
Whichever level is chosen by a local government, activities must be based on an analysis of the crime problems in the area and how best to solve them.

Funding and resources

The success of a local crime prevention strategy will depend on the level of commitment to the project from within the council. There will probably be personnel and financial implications for the council. An essential component of a good strategy is a dedicated project co-ordinator to manage the development and implementation of crime prevention projects. Funding is likely to be required for:
  • A full time crime prevention co-ordinator.
  • Administrative support for the co-ordinator.
  • Conducting a community safety audit (these costs vary considerably depending on the size of the area, the nature of the crime problem and the extent of existing information).
  • Covering the costs of implementing projects.
  • Monitoring and evaluating the strategy.
Funds may need to be sought from outside council budgets. Several municipalities have however found avenues within council to provide some seed funding. In some cases funding has been obtained from other levels of government. Crime prevention activities that overlap with existing council functions should not need external funding.

For more information on the manual Making South Africa safe: A manual for community based crime prevention contact Philip Nel at the NCPS on (012) 339 2523 or the ISS.
Antoinette Louw
Institute for Security Studies