The debate about the establishment of local government policing in South Africa has taken second place to more important questions about restructuring and reorienting the national police service. Ironically, initial suspicions about possible threats that local police agencies could pose, have now been overtaken by high expectations as to what can be achieved.

Enacting a legislative framework for municipal policing was only a small part of the battle, and, with little experience from which to learn locally, the process of establishing successful municipal police agencies is likely to be slow and iterative. Many municipalities (particularly those outside the country's six major metropolitan areas) lack the resources and the skills to ensure that such police agencies are an outright success.

Some of the key challenges facing South African cities in the establishment of metropolitan police services are:

Clarifying the role and mandate of the MPS particularly as it relates to crime prevention and co-ordination with the SAPS

Co-ordination with SAPS and other enforcement agencies will require the MPS to carve out its area of jurisdiction, agree on joint and separate priorities, share resources and minimise turf conflicts with the SAPS. As we have pointed out earlier, one of the obstacles to co-ordination between the police agencies is the different geographic jurisdictions in which they operate. Building an effective working relationship with the SAPS is one of the most critical challenges facing MPS leaders at this stage. This may be complicated by the fact that both organisations share the legal mandate for 'crime prevention' and there is no shared understanding of that mandate. Another issue which may cause difficulties in the relationship between the SAPS and municipal police services is the idea of 'burden-sharing' as introduced in the 1998 White Paper on Safety and Security, and the need for some SAPS funds to be linked to the re-allocation of certain function from the SAPS to the Metro Police Services.

Balancing enforcement and crime prevention activities

Both of these activities are equally weighted in the legislative mandate to metropolitan police services. If the national government policy of requiring city governments to co-ordinate 'social crime prevention' remains intact, the MPS may have to embrace social forms of prevention which have not been their traditional preserve (or the social crime prevention function will have to be accommodated elsewhere in the municipality). Existing MPS's are focussing almost entirely on traffic enforcement and traditional law enforcement methods of combating crime, with little attention given to prevention.

Determining the extent to which MPS officers will act as 'peace officers' and enforce bylaws and legislation

This will involve determining the range of legislation which municipal police officers will have to enforce, and ensuring that they are sufficiently skilled to perform all these functions. Training in crime prevention and enforcement of bylaws and legislation (other than traffic legislation) should be prioritised.

Transforming the organisational culture from specialist enforcement (such as traffic or planning enforcement) to more generalist community policing approaches

The SAPS has benefited from years of training on community policing and multi-agency partnerships, and has moved some way to implementing a community policing approach, but the MPS do not have the same background. The MPS will face a steep learning curve in building effective community partnerships for safety. They will need to move from being an agency which has traditionally only focussed on traffic enforcement, to one which is a 'police service' in the true sense of the word. Former traffic officials in the new Metro Police Services are one of the few categories of public servants whose job descriptions and working lives have changed profoundly in the past couple of years.

Financing a MPS

Municipalities wishing to establish Metro Police Services will need to find increased resources for public safety provision, without direct financial assistance from the national fiscus. In some municipalities, additional levies have been proposed. It remains to be seen whether local ratepayers will be willing to pay more in order to have a local police service.

Defining the conditions of service of municipal police officers

This will require cities to provide pay parity for members of the MPS who do the same work and hold the same rank (at present, the inherited labour relations arrangements in many municipalities mean that officials can be earning very different packages for doing the same work) and come to workable agreements with labour unions around conditions of service. Issues concerning disciplinary procedures have already come under the spotlight in Johannesburg, and Cape Town was facing union unhappiness with various aspects of their process to establish the metropolitan police.

Dealing with demands to include former combatants

Many municipalities are facing political pressure to incorporate former members of the liberation armies in their new police services. This issue has already been faced by the SAPS, without much success. It raises problems around entry requirements for municipal police services, as well as questions around the political neutrality required for professional policing.

Ensuring political independence of local police services

The national police service (SAPS) has undergone a painful process of transformation over the past decade, central to which has been the idea of de-politicising the police function in South Africa. Elected councillors and executive mayors will need to learn the same lessons about reducing political interference in operational policing as have their counterparts in the national and provincial legislatures. The memory of politically-aligned policing is still fresh in the minds of citizens, and municipal police forces will need to guard against becoming pawns in future election campaigns.

The harmonisation and integration of bylaws

Municipalities will each require one consolidated, modernised set of local bylaws which are politically and constitutionally appropriate. The drafting of these bylaws is a massive task. Even when it is complete, there are likely to be some legal (eg constitutional) challenges to the bylaws in the initial period.

The effective enforcement of bylaws

Bylaw enforcement could be used to address the 'broken window' syndrome of urban disorder and fear. However, this will require Metro Police Officers who are confident and competent to enforce a wide range of bylaws, and municipal courts which are able to impose strict penalties for bylaw infringements.

Meeting public expectations

Politicians (MECs, mayors and councillors) have generated an enormous amount of media coverage and public interest in municipal policing, and have, in some cases, made extravagant promises about the contribution that the MPS will make to reduce crime. Given that most of the existing municipal police agencies are focussing largely on traffic enforcement or on work in only certain parts of the cities, those expectations are unlikely to be met, at least in the short term. The provision of visible policing, whether or not it impacts upon crime, is a central challenge facing the new generation of municipal police managers. Only by being on the street, and being seen to act professionally, will the MPS make an impact on public perceptions of fear and safety.

Maintaining standards

There is likely to be a great deal of scrutiny of municipal/metropolitan police agencies in this early phase. This places pressure on managers to ensure that problems like bribery, corruption, excessive use of force, inappropriate treatment of victims of crime, and racism are minimised, and dealt with in a decisive manner. The councils, provincial governments and the SAPS are formally charged with monitoring the MPS, but human rights bodies, advocacy groups and unions will also be watching closely for any problems.

Conclusion

The success of local policing in the major cities is critical to ensuring that the concepts of locally controlled, efficient and professional police become a standard feature of the law enforcement environment in South Africa. Should they fail to do so, the hand of those who argued that local policing was a dangerous experiment which should not have been encouraged at the expense of the national police service will be strengthened. Should municipal police, however, be seen as providing high levels of service, the argument for a further devolution of policing power may be strengthened, and the SAPS will be challenged to improve their standards of service delivery to comparable levels.