Chapter 5: Victim support and safety strategies

Key points

The most common sources of support were family (26%), police (20%), friends (16%), traditional authorities (13%) and neighbours (12%).

Support from traditional authorities was much more sought after among victims of property crimes (17%) than of crimes involving violence (6%).

The needs of victims

Addressing the needs of victims of crime, both practically and emotionally, enables them to cope better with the experience of victimisation, encourages them to participate in the investigation and prosecution of offenders, and to regain faith in the criminal justice system. As a result, numerous efforts by the government and by non-governmental organisations have been directed at meeting the needs of victims of crime in recent years.

The city victim surveys conducted by the ISS, however, found low levels of awareness about victim support services and their benefits. As a result, and because few services are actually available to the majority of people in metropolitan areas, few victims had ever used these services.1 It is thus unlikely that people living in deep rural parts of the country would have access to victim support services. Consequently, victims in the rural survey were not asked about victim support services. Instead, their views on who they turned to for help after victimisation and what kind of assistance they would have liked, were recorded.

Victim support

Victims of each crime type could name three organisations or groups that they turned to for help. Across all categories of crime, the most common source of assistance was family members, followed by the police, friends and traditional authorities (such as chiefs or elders) (table 20). Only 4% of victims did not seek assistance from anyone, and only 2% turned to their local community police forum.

There were some differences in the behaviour of victims of crimes involving violence and crimes in which property only was taken when seeking assistance. In both cases, family and the police were the two most popular sources of assistance. However, violent crime victims were much more likely to seek the assistance of friends than those who experienced property crimes (figure 15). Violent crime victims were also marginally more likely to look to the police, family and doctors for help. Traditional authorities were clearly a much more popular choice for the victims of property than of violent crimes.

These results are similar to those reported in other victim surveys and reflect the types of assistance that victims of crime look for. In most cases, victims seek a balance between moral support (those who turn to family, friends and neighbours) and the need to resolve the matter — either through the criminal justice system (those who turn to the police) or through alternative means. Traditional authorities, for example, may assist in mediating in cases where offenders are known, in order to recover their property or mete out alternative forms of punishment.

The survey findings on the kinds of support that victims would have liked, illustrate this point further. Half of all victims (49%) said they would have liked more effective policing and law enforcement. Although much less popular, other types of assistance included moral support (counselling was mentioned by less than ten respondents) and community support (table 21).

Although only 20% of victims actually sought the assistance of the police after victimisation (table 10), half of the sample said that the support they would have liked, was effective policing (table 11). This disparity is probably a result of the survey methodology: when asked what support they would have liked, victims were allowed only one option. This is in contrast to the three options they were given when asked who they turned to for help after victimisation.

Although victims of property and violent crimes sought help from largely similar sources (figure 15), the kind of support they would have liked was quite different.

The most popular types of support sought by victims of crimes involving violence were effective law enforcement (45%) and moral support (35%). Few mentioned community support, information on how to prevent crime or practical support (which includes medical attention, legal aid or advice, financial relief, and others — figure 16). Victims of property crime, by comparison, were more likely to call for better law enforcement (52%) than violent crime victims. It is unlikely that victims of violent crimes are less interested in prosecuting offenders. Rather, the methodological limitation in making one choice only probably meant that many of these victims opted for moral support above law enforcement — a type of assistance sought by only 8% of property crime victims.

Victims of property offences were also more keen on community support and information on prevention than were victims of violence. The latter probably believe that violent offences are difficult to prevent — hence the low numbers who sought information on prevention or community support, both of which are required for developing preventive measures.

Safety strategies

Respondents (both victims and non-victims) were asked about the types of strategies that the government and individuals themselves should employ to make rural areas safer. These views are important for policy makers and planners, because they indicate:

Opinions of people about what is needed in their areas

Gathering the views of those affected has become accepted practice in local development initiatives - the same should apply in the design of strategies to reduce crime.

How to plan for the short and long term

If the vast majority of respondents call for improved law enforcement and justice, this reflects a sense of urgency among the public. It would therefore be unwise to focus all crime reduction efforts on long-term projects such as schools-based violence reduction and education projects to reduce domestic violence. A balance would be required between short-term, highly visible projects and such longer term efforts.

People’s opinions about the causes of crime

Although the factors that cause crime can be generalised, the views of those who are affected often reflect differences in emphasis which should be considered by policy makers.

When asked what the government should do to make rural areas safer, 21% of rural respondents said they did not know. Among those who did have an opinion on the issue, there was overwhelming support for criminal justice-type interventions: 72% mentioned improvements to the systems of policing and justice. Similar views were recorded in the city victim surveys conducted in the metropolitan areas of the country.2

In most cases, rural respondents wanted the government to improve the accessibility of the police - through deploying more officials, building more police stations or ensuring that the police were available 24 hours a day (figure 17). Where justice was concerned, 17% of respondents identified the need for harsher sentences for criminals.

Less than a quarter said the government should focus on job creation to reduce crime in rural areas. This is perhaps surprising, given that the survey was conducted in the poorest rural areas in the country, reflected in the demographics of the realised sample (see chapter 2), and that most victims identified financial gain as the motive for most crimes (see chapter 3). However, the findings probably reflect just how weak policing is in rural areas, as well as the belief that the criminal justice system should be responsible for resolving crime.

This is supported by results of a follow-up question in which people were asked what the government should do, besides policing, to make rural areas safer. Respondents’ first and second choice were recorded. The most popular choice (80%) was more jobs for the unemployed. The second choice was harsher penalties for offenders (including sentencing and tougher bail conditions), followed by improving local infrastructure and developing the area (table 22).

Although the importance of job creation and development in reducing crime is clearly illustrated by these results, it is nevertheless revealing that harsher penalties were mentioned by many respondents. This illustrates that rural respondents expect equal weight to be given to an effective criminal justice system as to other longer term strategies. Understanding and responding to public attitudes to punishment and sentencing in particular should be an important part of any crime reduction strategy.

Reducing crime requires a co-operative effort between the government and its agencies, and civil society. For this reason, respondents were asked what they could do to make their area safer.

Over two-thirds of all respondents (67%) said they did not know how they could contribute towards local safety. This large proportion is significant, since it suggests that the level of awareness about what ordinary citizens can do to reduce crime is very low:

Further, few victims of crime in rural areas changed their behaviour after the incident: 23% in the case of vandalism, 16% for burglary and violent crime, 13% for stock theft and 11% for robbery.



Only 7% of all respondents said their community made alternative ‘arrangements’ to protect itself, and only 29% said there was a community police forum in their area.

However, the potential does exist for individual and community-based activities to reduce crime. A wide range of interventions were suggested by respondents in response to the question about what they could do to make their area safer (table 23). In addition, the overwhelming majority (80%) of the 54 respondents who said that their community made alternative ‘arrangements’ to protect itself, believed that these measures were effective in securing the community. (Community police forums, however, had less success: only 42% said their local CPF had made a difference to crime in their area.)