The Durban Metropolitan Council has demonstrated a rare commitment at local government level to tackle the problem of crime. This commitment should not be taken for granted, considering that policing and criminal justice are not local government competencies in South Africa. Although safety is now recognised as being about far more than law enforcement, the expectation that cash-strapped, overstretched local governments around the country will easily take up the challenge of crime prevention, is shortsighted.

Despite the clear mandate given to local governments in the White Paper on Safety and Security 1999-2004, the capacity, skills and resources to make this a reality are limited. In the case of Durban, the crime prevention drive was fuelled by the recognition that the city’s growth and development revolved around its ability to attract investment and tourism. As long as crime impedes this goal, the council must intervene.

The decision by the council in late 1999 to establish a Safer City Project with dedicated staff indicated that the project was being taken seriously. Without this crucial step, research results — like those of the victim survey — were unlikely to have become more than paper-based statistics. The importance of information to guide strategy development was clear from the start of the Project’s work. The victim survey results were only one part of the lengthy process of consultations that culminated in the writing of the Durban Safer City Strategy 2000. The process of deciding which crime problems to prioritise, and what form the strategy should take, involved balancing many research findings with political imperatives, budgetary constraints and public expectations.

The victim survey showed that, above all, the people of Durban expected the government to provide more effective policing and law enforcement. Even non-state interventions were described by the respondents in terms of policing. This raised important challenges for a crime prevention strategy that was led by local government (as opposed to the police or justice system).

The Durban Safer City Strategy 2000 took up the challenge, with ‘effective policing and crime prevention’ being the first of three components of the strategy. The key to this component is the Metro Police, established in Durban on 1 July 2000, the first such service in the country. Apart from its functions of enforcing traffic laws and municipal by-laws, visible policing and related crime prevention functions, the Metro Police will take the lead in establishing a ‘policing partnership’ between the Durban Metropolitan Council and the South African Police Service. This has been a crucial step in enabling the council to turn its commitment to prevent crime into action. As such, it raises a question about local government’s role in crime prevention: how will local governments that are unable to establish and afford municipal or metropolitan police respond to the demands of their constituencies for better law enforcement?

The links between the victim survey results and the Durban Safer City Strategy 2000 are also evident in the second component of the strategy, ‘targeted social crime prevention’. This component is largely motivated by a concern with the causes of crime, the stark resource imbalances bred by apartheid and their implications, especially for education and young people, as well as the stigmatisation of vulnerable groups such as street children who are associated with crime and disorder, especially in the inner city. ‘Targeted social crime prevention’ also hopes to respond to the needs of crime victims who are identified as the most important link between the police and the perpetrator. The victim survey covered many of these areas. It illustrated how the risk of crime varied between rich and poor, how the poor were particularly exposed to violence and how policing resources were skewed in favour of the wealthier (and often white) communities in the city. Public fear of crime in the inner city suggested concerns not so much about crime and policing, but about other factors associated with overcrowding, street-traders, street children and congestion.

The victim survey, by its very nature, highlighted the position of victims in the fight against crime. The evidence was clear that people received very little support after victimisation, either practically or emotionally. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that many South Africans feel helpless and trapped by their fear of crime. At the same time, it was encouraging that such a large number of people told the survey that they were prepared to work with the police and share the responsibility for ensuring their own safety.