SECTION 1: CRIME INFORMATION AND INFORMATION GATHERING

In order to succeed, crime prevention must begin with a foundation based on information about those areas and people which the prevention programmes should address. Examples of the type of information which is important in this regard include those who are likely to commit crimes; those who are likely to become victims of crime (i.e. vulnerable groups); the nature of the urban environment; and government, local government and community initiatives. Each of these, and perhaps many more, forms a part of the foundation upon which crime prevention is built. This section presents papers from the conference on these issue areas.

DATA COLLECTION

Antoinette Louw, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa

Crime prevention needs to be based on accurate information about the crime problem and existing initiatives which could assist in reducing crime. A key issue in information gathering is using as many sources from the community as possible. Crime audits enable an understanding of particular areas. These cover the extent of crime, the areas and people affected, the profiles of victims, the profiles of offenders, and environments in which crime occurs. As police statistics only provide a limited amount of this information, it is crucial to use other sources as well, such as victim support agencies, private security firms, community police forums (CPFs), and women’s groups. Another important source is victim survey data, which illustrate extent, risk and fear of crime. They also measure public perception.

A crime audit should be carried out before a victim survey so that target questioning can be used and the survey can be adapted to meet the needs of each specific area. Victim surveys have some limitations in that they do not provide data for all areas of crime, especially violence against women (domestic and sexual assault), crimes committed against the youth and children, and information about offenders and potential offenders.

Victim surveys can assist in the process of selecting crime prevention programmes by providing data on the categories of victims who are the most affected, the circumstances in which crimes occur, the use of support services and the needs of victims. They can also indicate perceptions about police service delivery and how the public respond to particular types of interventions. Such information can assist in balancing political pressure against actual crime reduction needs.

Patti Pearcey, British Columbia Coalition for Safer Communities, Canada

The BC Coalition for Safer Communities is developing a tool to assist communities in creating a clearer picture of the relationships between social issues and factors contributing to crime. Our experience in working with communities over the years on grassroots community safety plans has shown that helping community members to create a full and accurate picture of what is going on in their community is a key step in developing an effective community safety strategy. It is also critical to provide communities with the tools that allow them to make the connections between conditions such as unemployment, lack of adequate housing, substance abuse, sexual abuse, inequality, poverty, illiteracy, racism and criminality.

This tool grew directly from working with isolated communities in northern British Columbia, where segments of the population were living in conditions which have been likened to those of developing countries. It became clear that, even though we were aware of the role that social factors were playing in the community crime picture, there was little information on those factors in a form that could be useful to the community.

Determining and analysing the relationship between community-specific demographic information and crime data would help communities to create a clearer picture of the relationships between social issues and factors contributing to crime. A community map would provide the community with the information it needed to understand what was at the root of the community’s problems, as well as to plan effectively for solutions.

All this is easier said than done. Firstly, collecting the data was more difficult than anticipated. The kind of data that communities were trying to collect included information on demographics such as gender, culture, age and socio-economic status, on unemployment, high school completion rates, literacy rates, poverty, teenage pregnancies, housing conditions and population densities. Even if community members were able to collect the data, it was often difficult to make any sense of the information, since data are rarely collected in uniform ways in terms of geographical area and time frames. It was also not always possible to get comparable information that would contextualise the local data, for example where local rates of poverty fit within the provincial and/or national trends.

Secondly, it was not always helpful to collate the information for communities and simply present it as a collection of statistical information, for two main reasons: communities were understandably defensive in reaction to the data since it was seen to paint a negative picture of their community; and we were told that the way in which it was presented could be overwhelming and intimidating, especially to those who had limited experience in using statistics.

The challenge has been to make the manual a friendly, effective and accessible tool for communities engaged in crime and social factor mapping. The best way has been to work with communities in collaborative mapping exercises using the tool to teach community members how to compile, map, and analyse key social factor information and crime data.

It is important to be sensitive about the denial that may exist in communities and to begin with something more manageable like property crime, rather than violence against women. Once people start to analyse the crime in terms of who, what, where, when, how and why, other issues will be raised, and other connections will be made.

Finally, it is important to provide a context for the information, for example, to take the information on school completion rates and illustrate the ways in which these might have something to do with crime in the community. Information could include some of the factors involved in early school leaving, and programmes which have been effective in keeping youth in school.

Anna Mtani, Dar es Salaam Safer Cities, Tanzania

International experience has shown that crime prevention programmes co-ordinated at the city level can have a significant impact in reducing crime, delinquency and public perceptions of crime and the fear of crime. Safety at the city level also has important implications for local economic growth and business investment. The Safer Cities programme in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, is aimed at strengthening the capacity of local government to manage and sustain urban security by reducing and preventing crime, especially those against women, children and other vulnerable groups.

It is a co-ordinated multifaceted strategy that aims at drawing resources and skills for local crime prevention from a variety of stakeholders and roleplayers. Stakeholders include the prime minister’s office, government departments and community organisations, while roleplayers include the Dar es Salaam city commission, business and NGOs, trade unions and the police, among others.

The objectives of the programme are to reduce the number of crime victims, assist those who are victimised and prevent repeat victimisation; develop a culture of respect and adherence to laws; and to support and upgrade visible policing and law enforcement. The means to achieve these objectives will include conducting a victim survey, awareness-raising on the need for crime prevention; a policy aimed at prioritising categories of crimes and using short and long-term interventions; and a crime prevention strategy around people’s perceptions of crime and the fear of crime. The programme was initiated in 1997 and will continue at least until 2000, undertaking to create a steering committee, prepare an action plan and disseminate information to journalists, media, educators and religious institutions, among others, on crime prevention in the city.

Fatima Alvarez-Castillo, University of the Philippines, Manila

Victimisation as a personal and community experience has not been well studied. There is a lack of knowledge about how communities experience and deal with crime as part of daily living. This is especially the case with the poor, who do not have access to the protection of government or the ability to pay for private security. For this reason, researchers should choose to focus their research on making it useful to the poor. Participatory action research (PAR) is a methodology that articulates the views of the less privileged. However, this method does not only gather data. It also educates the participants about the problem of crime.

PAR is an ethical approach that discloses the challenges of the problem and provides information. For example, in community-based projects on violence against women, participants were trained in gathering and handling evidence, convincing witnesses to testify, informing women about their legal options, judicial procedures and counselling. A referral system was also put in place.

PAR relies on collaboration between the community and external actors. Its benefits are that it brings to light sensitive information not uncovered by traditional research, it involves communities in the research and gives them opportunities to learn new skills. It also improves communication between poor communities and some government agencies. However, the process is slow and time-consuming and relies on a high commitment among those involved. The results, though, show the benefits of such a process and reinforce the importance of communities in crime prevention programmes and strategies.
Environmental Design and Urban Planning

Ahti Laitinen, University of Turku, Finland

Environmental planning has a dual significance:

The following list of recommendations have been approved by the Council of Europe as steps that should be taken in a crime prevention programme:

Basic insights into the relationship between urban design and criminality developed in the US in the 1920s-30s. Oscar Newman’s work represents a school known as Crime Prevention Though Environmental Design (CPTED) based on the premise that the environment should convey the message to potential offenders that inhabitants are keeping an eye on the area, that crimes can easily be noticed, and therefore, that there is a risk of being caught.

The following examples provide some indication of the way in which the physical environment may be modified as part of a crime prevention strategy. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, crime prevention has been carried out as a co-operative endeavour between planners, inhabitants and controlling authorities. Strategies which have been successful, include:

In British Columbia, the CPTED approach has also been used by:

Tinus Kruger, CSIR, South Africa

The physical environment and environmental design should be considered in any holistic crime prevention strategy. A few examples of the relationship between the physical environment and crime prevention are:

There are five principles of environmental design that are applicable to crime prevention: surveillance and visibility; territoriality and defensible space; access and escape routes; image and aesthetics; and target hardening.

Before implementing a programme of environmental design, the nature and extent of crime in the area should be investigated. Environmental design should be incorporated within a holistic approach to crime prevention – it should not be seen as a solution on its own.

SECTION 2: IDENTIFYING FACTORS BEHIND VIOLENCE

FEAR OF CRIME

Gomolemo Moshoeu, University of Fort Hare, South Africa

The fear of crime – that is people’s perceptions that they are at risk of being victims of crime – is important in crime prevention. Recent research shows that the fear of crime is widespread in South Africa. In general, this type of fear may be categorised in three ways:

Fear is an obstacle in building safer communities as it restricts behaviour patterns and people’s capacity to participate in leisure and other activities, and decreases morale. As such, it is important that the fear of crime is addressed as part of broader crime prevention initiatives.

The Tasmania Crime Prevention Strategy is a community-based crime prevention programme that focuses on both crime and the fear of crime. The programme shifted the burden of crime prevention from the criminal justice agencies to the local government and community by bringing local government, officials, residents, perpetrators and victims together to enable them to participate in creating safer neighbourhoods.

The programme has three elements:

This model is promising because it reduces the burden of dealing with crime prevention on the criminal justice system; utilises local government as the centre from which local crime prevention initiatives can be co-ordinated; enhances the participation of residents in key issues affecting the quality of life in their neighbourhoods; and ensures the participation of youth in crime prevention activities. Together, these activities assist in reducing fear of crime by involving those affected in some of the solutions.

CYCLES OF VIOLENCE

Merle Friedman, Business Against Crime, South Africa

There is much debate on whether cycles of violence exist. The evidence increasingly seems to prove their existence and, while not all victims become perpetrators, most perpetrators were victims. This is why victim empowerment is an important factor in crime prevention.

Trauma associated with victimisation manifests itself in various ways, for example:

There are also specific types of victims in South Africa, including victims of apartheid, victims of crime, and hidden victims (those whose occupation expose them to violence, for example, nurses, police and mental health workers). Violence may also affect victims, for example, through post-traumatic stress disorder.

There are multiple types of trauma and not all can be treated in the same way. Different types of interventions are necessary to create positive resilience so that the perpetuation of cycles of violence is halted. For example, this might include acknowledgement, apology, reparation, support and therapy for victims of apartheid; victim empowerment, debriefing and therapy for crime victims; and recognition, building positive resilience and support/debriefing for hidden victims or perpetrators.

Barry Weisberg, Civic Consultants, United States

How can the cycle of violence be broken and a cycle of peace created? Violence existed before cities, but violence is created in cities. The urban cycle of violence is a cycle that feeds itself, where violence begets violence. The social and physical structures of cities are deteriorating and cities are becoming an inhumane form of settlement, creating violence through urban stress, complexity, density, diversity, noise and speed. There is no common territory, language, identity, economic life, or culture. This leads to a loss of identity for those who live in the city and marginalisation for certain groups.

There are many different forms of urban violence:

To break the urban cycle of violence it is necessary to break important links in the cycle. Through education and training the population must gain an understanding of global, urban and local violence. To accomplish this, the culture of violence represented in the media, communications and consumerism must be rejected. Violence against the geosphere needs to be curbed through limited development, slow or no growth; the biosphere through sustainable development; and the humansphere through equitable development. Initiatives need to be established such as crime intervention and prevention; violence intervention and prevention; and programmes aimed at reducing fear.

IDENTIFYING THOSE AT RISK

David Syme, National Campaign Against Violence and Crime, Australia

The National Campaign Against Violence and Crime (NCAVAC) is an Australian initiative operating within the Attorney-General’s department as part of the federal government’s programme on crime prevention and violence against vulnerable groups. A primary focus of this program is on early intervention or primary prevention. The NCAVAC has about thirty different projects, but only two will be discussed here.

Working with adolescents to prevent domestic violence – Research has shown that working with adolescents can be important in the primary prevention of domestic violence. For some disadvantaged boys, for example, violence is a way of proving their masculinity and thereby claiming social status and power, while children who have experienced family violence are at a much higher risk of becoming perpetrators and have a far greater acceptance of violence as a means of control.

Adolescence is an opportune time to influence the formation of healthy, non-violent relationships later in life and is a transition point where destructive gender relations can be challenged before they are set in adulthood. There is a growing support for a holistic approach to violence prevention which includes strategies targeting young people that integrate safe school policies, educational goals and social skills courses. School is an important violence prevention institution, but there is also a need to have such a programme thoroughly integrated with other community resources and developments.

A twelve-month pilot project has been developed in a rural town in Western Australia which commenced in August 1998. The experience gained from this project can provide guidance to schools and other services on potentially effective means of preventing violence such as that already being experienced by adolescents within relationships.

Development and early intervention approaches to crime prevention – From the development perspective, there are several multiple risk and protective factors that occur at crucial transitional points in a young person’s life (for example, birth, transition from primary to high school and from high school to tertiary education). Risk factors tend to co-occur and operate cumulatively. For example, child abuse and neglect are of particular importance and often occur together. It is important that risk factors are approached early in life, for example, appropriate interventions at the onset of aggressive behaviour during pre-school years.

Such programmes require an holistic approach which addresses the interconnection between risk and protective factors for victims, offenders and neighbourhoods. In addition, such programmes should use the most effective measures at the best possible time, and create links between all those actors involved in preventing crime.

Lauren Segal, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, South Africa

Sports Against Crime (SAC) is a programme that aims to create positive rolemodels as an alternative to crime. The programme was developed through interviews with ‘amagents’ (gang members) – youth involved in crime in the community and in jail. It was found that violence and prison had become a part of their world and there was no sense that alternatives existed. Many positive values can be extracted from the world of sport, including courage, leadership, a sense of belonging, esteem and hope. These could be used to combat some of the effects of youngsters engaged in, or with the prospect of becoming involved in crime.

The SAC programme has managed to give youth a sense of affirmation through, for example, team-building. It also provided role-models from disadvantaged backgrounds who have made alternative choices to a life of crime. It has helped youth to find other ways to seek respect and find value in themselves rather than through crime. For example, values such as hard work, succeeding at school, courage and being successful on the sports field could be pursued. SAC can also boost the strength and self-esteem of women by showing them that they are as good, capable and strong as men.

An important part of crime prevention is providing a way of saying no to crime through a secure environment, positive values and the availability of positive leisure and recreation activities. Sports Against Crime is one programme through which the latter can be achieved.

Glenda Cooney, Crime Prevention Saskatchewan, Canada

The UN Convention on the Rights of Children was adopted in 1989 and provides the basis for protecting children from all forms of violence. Nations around the world are incorporating this Convention into their laws and constitutions. They are establishing children’s commissioners, ombudsmen or advocates as redress mechanisms for children whose rights have been restricted or denied. In the light of this development, we must move away from considering children in terms of concern for their needs, to the recognition that abuse of their human rights should also be addressed.

Children require opportunities to learn and to make choices in order to become responsible citizens. Without social, economic and political power, children remain the most vulnerable citizens. The traditional view on advocacy was that children needed ‘saving and protecting’, and resulted in adults lobbying for the positions that they felt would be in the best interest of the child. Advocacy has now moved from ‘child saving’ to ‘participation’. The goal is to balance children’s needs while respecting their rights and dignity. The challenge is to give them voices in the decisions being made about their well-being, while acknowledging that there could be circumstances beyond their level of comprehension.

In the 1980s, the province of Saskatchewan acknowledged that their children were without rights. The government-appointed taskforce indicated the need for an advocate or ombudsman for children who could educate them on what their rights are, hold their caregivers accountable when their rights were infringed upon, and ensure that they were being treated fairly. The government’s response was to create the Child Action Plan. This recognised that children by themselves are unable to access or influence powerful voices such as the media and decision-makers. The gaps in service and the need for prevention created the Children’s Advocate Office. The Children’s Advocate is an independent officer of the Legislative Assembly who is not constrained by political interference and is free to challenge and criticise government legislation, policy, and resource commitments to children and youth.

Advocacy holds legislators accountable and encourages communities to insist that children are valued and treated with dignity and respect. It raises the profile of children on the political agenda and enhances the fair treatment of children generally.

FIREARMS AS TOOLS OF VIOLENCE

Wendy Cukier, Ryerson Polytechnic, Canada

Firearms are tools for crime, violence and injury and, as such, present a risk. They are used in homicides, suicides, domestic violence, unintentional injury, and unintentional death. In Canada, firearm suicides outnumber firearm homicides. Internationally, approximately 300 000 people are killed a year with firearms as a result of homicide, suicide and unintentional injury.

Impulse is a key factor in many crimes, especially in youth suicides. Research supports the idea that many firearm deaths are preventable. To reduce risk factors, several steps should be taken, including:

In Canada, stricter gun laws have resulted in a decrease in the number of firearm deaths. However, there is still much that can be done to reduce these deaths and accidents.

Joseph Dube and Clare Taylor, Gun-Free South Africa

South Africa has one of the highest rates of gun-related deaths in the world. In 1996, an average of 210 people were injured daily by firearms, of which sixty required hospitalisation. Gun-Free South Africa, launched in 1994, grew out of a national campaign to ensure a safe and secure nation through reducing the number of firearms.

A Gun-Free Zone Campaign (GFZ) was developed to provide people with a ‘space free from guns’ by placing restrictions on those entering an area with a gun in the same way that smoking and drinking may be controlled. A GFZ has the ability to raise public awareness about firearms, change behaviour by encouraging public debates, and identify alternatives to guns.

While guns do not cause crime and violence, there is a close relationship between their availability and injury. The process for creating a gun-free zone provides a platform for communities to debate issues of safety and security and provides one way for communities to take concrete steps in making their environment safer.

Martinho Chachiua, Instituto Superior de Relaçoes Internaçionais, Mozambique

During two decades of war, Mozambique experienced the diffusion of weapons throughout society. Due to the prevailing deprivation of the majority of the population, these weapons have fuelled crime and violence internally, as well as regionally since the war ended. The presence of weapons jeopardises social and political stability and hence hinders socio-economic development.

The Christian Council of Mozambique developed a weapons collection programme called Swords into Ploughshares (TAE), believing that the prevailing violence was partly caused by the large number of weapons in the country. The programme organisers wanted to create an atmosphere of confidence which would give anonymity and security for people handing in their weapons. Individuals could exchange weapons for agricultural implements, sewing machines or construction materials, among other items.

In sixteen months, 2 016 different kinds of weaponry and thousands of related accessories were collected. The relative success of the arms buy-back programme has been questioned by suggesting that the buy-back tapped the wrong market, failing to collect the weapons being used in crime. However, it has proven to be an important way in which civil society can participate in finding solutions to reduce the number of guns in a community.

SECTION 3: THE ROLE OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IN CRIME PREVENTION

National government has an important role to play in crime prevention, from developing its own strategies to supporting those of local government and communities. Presentations made on the role of national government focused on specific programmes under way and on the more general considerations that should be taken into account when developing a national crime prevention programme.

THE ROLE OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IN SETTING GUIDELINES AND CO-ORDINATING ACTION

Bronwyn Somerville, Crime Prevention Unit, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, New Zealand

The Crime Prevention Unit has three roles: advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet on the crime prevention implications of policy proposals; maintaining a strategic overview and co-ordinating the crime prevention activities of central government agencies; and establishing and maintaining the partnerships between government and local safer community councils in New Zealand.

The CPU developed from research undertaken in 1992, which showed that New Zealand needed a ‘change of recipe’ to their ‘law and order’ regime. Crime and its costs were on the rise; there was no crime prevention policy, mandate or single agency responsible for co-ordination or management; existing responses were geared towards the processing of offenders; and responses by police, the judiciary, government, and community groups were unco-ordinated, had conflicting objectives, duplication and poor utilisation of resources.

The resulting Crime Prevention Strategy has undertaken to overcome these challenges through co-ordinated management of government activities in crime prevention, including policy, research, and service delivery and has worked to develop partnerships with local government, indigenous authorities, and other ethnic and community organisations. It is acknowledged that government must provide policy, process, services, funding and leadership, while providing local communities with opportunities to become more involved in crime prevention.

The key areas for strategic intervention have been:

Co-ordination has been an important component of the programme. This has included encouraging all relevant government departments to focus on identifying crime prevention possibilities and their impact on broader policy development work. Partnerships with sixty safer community councils (SCCs) have been formalised with the government. The purpose of the safer community councils is to enhance the community’s capability to respond to issues of crime and anti-social behaviour at the local level. The CPU makes a contribution towards infrastructure, the co-ordination of funding and local project funding, and also helps the SCCs to prioritise and co-ordinate resources.

There are several important lessons that have been learned from this project. These include:

Irvin Waller, International Centre for the Prevention of Crime

It is possible to improve the quality of life through law enforcement and crime prevention. This strategy requires a rigorous and responsible process that incorporates problem-solving partnerships at all levels and knowledge about which crime prevention initiatives are effective or not, complemented by action.

To develop a programme around crime prevention, a process of identifying risk factors should be undertaken and the information which is collected, should be passed on to local government. Common risk factors include marginalisation and exclusion, dysfunctional families with uncaring and incoherent parental attitudes, social acceptance of a culture of violence, the presence of facilitators (i.e. drugs and firearms), discrimination and exclusion deriving from sexist, racist, or other oppression, and the degradation of urban environments and social bonds.

A national effort to assist in crime prevention must begin with an identified lead organisation which develops the objectives, vision and plan of the programme. To be effective, this agency will need a comprehensive mandate and enough seniority to include other government departments in the process.

There must also be the capacity to mobilise the process through training, the exchange of information, financial resources, human resources and bringing together best practices.

A successful programme will also require an analytical capacity that can undertake research, monitoring and evaluation, influence resource reallocation towards the most effective and economical actions, and a communication capacity to engage the public and promote education in schools, colleges and universities.

To create successful crime prevention initiatives there must be certain fundamental elements, such as guidelines, co-ordination, monitoring and analysis, and clear roles for national and local government.

Joseph Tanny, Security Council, Côte d’Ivoire

Urban crime represents an increasing danger to the future of society. The government, locally elected officials and citizens all have a role to play in crime prevention. However, in order to achieve this, a plan of action that contains certain elements must be devised.

Firstly, changes must be made to the environment and living conditions of those excluded from society by eradicating shantytowns and initiating a new urban policy to develop a social housing plan. The creation of activity centres where community residents have a place to meet should also be considered. The institutionalisation of trained social mediators to facilitate dialogue between public authorities, police, and ‘problem’ populations is also an important element.

Secondly, actions need to be taken that improve the situation for youth, including developing schools in underprivileged areas and providing specialised centres for orphaned or abandoned children.

Thirdly, there is a need to create a more adequate police force through community policing initiatives, the opening of new stations in underprivileged areas, setting up urban crime prevention units in well-known high crime areas, developing partnerships with municipal police forces and through the creation of community and local crime prevention councils consisting of the different levels of police, social workers, judges, representatives of activity centres and various relevant associations.

Pathe Diagne, Researcher, Senegal

Perspectives of justice and crime prevention programmes differ around the world. This means that a mediation programme that worked in Toronto can fail in Latin America. In Senegal, there is a national plan to fight poverty using a broad process and ensuring access to justice. Three situations are representative of the challenges faced by Senegal in combating crime.

The ‘new city’ in Dakar is plagued by major problems which municipal authorities find difficult to control. An area of the city is dominated by a specific religious community that have their own traditional criminal justice system. Therefore, there needs to be a balance between using this traditional system while still ensuring security and human rights. In addition, the city is close to the country’s border, and new types of crime occur through immigration. Also, the introduction of tourism to this area has increased drug problems.

The model needed to create an alternative justice system to prevent crime should have several key components, namely the involvement of all roleplayers both from within and outside the criminal justice system and a national programme for fighting poverty. It is impossible to guarantee security without a minimal social economic system. The local government needs to equip itself to be able to provide a minimum of services.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT AND CRIME PREVENTION

Rapu Molekane, Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security, South Africa

Since 1994, the South African national government has supported crime prevention through the development of policy and legislation. There are six central policy papers and pieces of legislation which are important for the implementation of crime prevention initiatives. These contribute to the broad national framework on crime prevention by outlining general policies and implementation, the framework for implementing municipal police services and furthering community policing.

The National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) is probably the most important national document, placing crime prevention firmly on the national agenda. This strategy was developed by an interdepartmental team and delineates the relationship between crime and social processes (for example, social and economic factors). The NCPS recognises that there are roleplayers beyond the police and those departments within the criminal justice system who should be involved in effectively combating crime.

Within the Department of Safety and Security, the 1998 White Paper is the guide for the department’s policy on crime prevention. The White Paper has two key focus areas: more effective law enforcement and effective social crime prevention. To facilitate the implementation of the White Paper, a National Crime Prevention Strategy Centre is being created which will identify priorities, co-ordinate information sharing and assist provincial and local governments in crime prevention.

Bernie Fanaroff, National Crime Prevention Strategy, South Africa

The national government plays a leading role with its partners in creating a vision and framework in which local mobilisation can take place. Government has a responsibility to support the different roles in provincial and local government. In addition, there is an urgent need to focus on the criminal justice system in order to improve its functioning. However, the government must also address issues around crime prevention, including diversion, training, reduction of prisoners awaiting trial, victim empowerment programmes and border control.

The National Crime Prevention Strategy has taken various steps towards addressing crime and devising means of crime prevention. These include its projects on vehicle theft and firearms. The former has a clear role for local government, while an effective policy on firearms will require steps to change public attitudes and improve education about weapons.

Crime prevention has been a process of learning as we go along. The partnerships between national government and the number of diverse roleplayers (police service, ministers, government departments, Business Against Crime and provincial and local governments) have been crucial in the implementation of programmes.

At the provincial level, the police service has been developing sector policing, which will move responsibility down to station level and will strengthen the community policing model. The Department of Justice is finding ways to involve local communities in justice processes both through formal court structures and in restorative justice models. In addition, an audit of community police forums (CPFs) has been completed and the NCPS is looking at ways of involving them further in local crime prevention initiatives.

There has been an agreement between departmental teams involved in the NCPS and the provincial sectors that co-operation in attempts to break the cycle of violence is crucial. There is political and criminal violence on the streets, and children grow up thinking that violence is the norm and not the exception, and the cycles is thus perpetuated.

The NCPS has also been providing assistance to local governments to develop a model where their primary role is the efficient execution of their core business, getting their departments to work on problem-solving as teams for maximum impact on crime prevention. However, it is important that local government does not become overburdened and stretched beyond capacity in terms of resources and management.

Piko Mbambo, National Crime Prevention Strategy, South Africa

South Africa’s history has left a legacy of firearms. Many initiatives have been launched by government in the past to deal with the proliferation of firearms, but these were poorly co-ordinated and had little impact.

The NCPS Firearms Task Team was established to develop a coherent strategy to deal with the proliferation of arms, identified as originating from the following sources:

The NCPS strategy on firearms aims to stop the influx of firearms into South Africa; to prevent legal firearms from becoming illegal through criminal activity; to reduce the existing pool of firearms in the country; and to mobilise public and political support for the NCPS programme.

The NCPS is implementing the firearms strategy through:

The only way to stop gun violence is for the majority of the community to find it unacceptable. Community support and action are vitally important to ensure that the firearms strategy will have a measure of success.

BRIEFING ON THE INTEGRATED CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, SOUTH AFRICA

The Integrated Criminal Justice System project began about two years ago, following the realisation that the criminal justice system was no longer functioning adequately and that there were blockages within the system that had to be identified and addressed. Some of the obstacles to efficient functioning that were noted, included:

The Integrated Criminal Justice System project focuses on the stream of events that occurs within the justice system. It began with an analysis of the situation and identification of blockages in the system, followed by identifying solutions (including sixty departmental ‘quick-fixes’, 36 cross-departmental ‘quick-fixes’, 26 fast-track initiatives, and five enterprise level solutions), the classification, costing and prioritisation of solutions, and planning implementation.

Since it was the process that was identified as the problem, not individual departments, the Integrated Criminal Justice System was split into six core processes: crime reporting and investigation, arrest processing, prosecution management, adjudication management, incarceration management, and community supervision. Through improving the effectiveness of these, steps can be taken to improve the smooth functioning of the entire justice system.

PRE-TRIAL SERVICES

Michelle India Baird, Bureau of Justice Assistance, South Africa

Crime is a problem that must be addressed through practical community-based initiatives that have immediate local impact, but that influence and shape national policy. For example, there is considered to be a crisis in the bail process in South Africa. The Department of Justice tightened legislation around the provision of bail, but needed to look beyond the legislation to practical solutions for overcrowding in jails and poor bail decisions.

A study was conducted in three courts and the results shaped the design of the pre-trial services project. The study findings showed that courts rely heavily on bail based on money, and that the amount of money chosen for bail does not correspond with the accused’s income. There is a lack of an automated, systematic case tracking system which leads to long delays, withdrawals, and remands, and witnesses do not come to court and are rarely informed about bail decisions.
Based on these findings, the goals of the project were designed to make the bail system more effective and more humane, while ensuring that serious, violent and repeat offenders were less likely to be released on bail, but that petty or first-time offenders are more likely to be released on warning or with affordable bail. Also important is that witnesses should be less likely to be intimidated and are informed about bail decisions and the status of the case.

The pre-trial services project is currently running in three pilot areas. Steps that have been taken to improve the functioning of the courts in these areas include the use of a court-based offender database with a digital photo of the offender so that the defendant cannot switch places with someone else; verified demographic information of the defendant provided by the pre-trial services office (residence, employment and income); a system of case-tracking to supervise accused persons released on bail; and a computer link between the SAPS criminal records centre and the courts, providing details about previous convictions before the bail decision is made.

In the pilot areas, these actions have begun to cut through the red tape of bureaucracy. Police are also able to access data more quickly, while the increased amount of available information allows for more informed decisions to be taken on the granting or refusal of bail. Using the special conditions of supervision, initial results show that 97 per cent of accused persons are appearing in court for the second time. Most importantly, magistrates know this is a process that they can trust and are thus more likely to use special conditions of supervision, which may lead to less crowded prisons.

SECTION 4: THE ROLE OF THE POLICE IN CRIME PREVETNION

The police have an important function in crime prevention, being the visible front end of the criminal justice system. However, internationally, the realisation has grown that the police alone are not responsible for crime prevention, and that other actors must also be included, ranging from governments to community-based organisations.

Lans Mcgregor Stuart, Durban City Police, South Africa

The structure of the police in South Africa includes a distinction between traffic officers and police officers who are responsible for enforcing different laws. The 1998 White Paper on Safety and Security recognised that national policing is only one factor within a co-operative policing network and the SAPS Amendment Bill provides for the establishment of municipal police services.

In South Africa, ‘municipal’ is a generic term covering all local authorities, up to and including those large enough to cover a metropolitan region. Municipal policing has become an important element in the transformation of policing within South Africa, especially in the light of current demands on local government to provide safety and security. Its success will depend largely on the degree of trust it can command within the community. Any community can establish municipal policing structures, which are regulated by an ‘oversight’ committee consisting of local government members.

Municipalities constitute the base level of government planning and policy implementation, and are therefore able to react appropriately to local crime trends which vary from region to region, requiring different strategies and approaches.

Durban is the only city that has an existing municipal policing capacity in South Africa, established in 1854. The Durban municipal police do many of the same things as the national police (data collection, crime deterrence, examination of crime patterns), but also have additional functions, including enforcing traffic regulations and local bylaws, and crime prevention. Members are known as ‘peace officers’, with powers of arrest, search and seizure.

The Durban City Police use a ‘bobby on the beat’ approach where foot patrols are permanently assigned, supported by specialised units which focus on specific crimes or types of offences. This policy is based on the belief that highly visible, readily available, smart, well-trained police officers are central to the success of any crime prevention programme. While certain police functions must stay in the domain of the national police, municipal police forces are in the best position to react appropriately in a partnership context to localised crime problems.

Piet Biesheuvel, United Kingdom Department for International Development Programme in South Africa

There are serious problems emerging within the South African criminal justice system, arising from the fact that there is an increasing demand to fight crime (growing at about twenty per cent per year) while the resources available to combat crime are decreasing. The critical challenge is to close or manage this gap.

There are three ways in which this gap could be managed: through reforms, restructuring and job sharing (i.e. sharing responsibilities through partnerships). The overall aim is crime reduction, of which crime prevention is one aspect.

The short-term focus is on crime detection, the medium term on crime prevention and the long-term goal is education programmes, including educating youth about crime which would lead to crime reduction.

The medium term challenge of crime prevention must include all government roleplayers plus the community, community police forums and others. All these actors together need to devise mechanisms that will be practical, implementable at zero cost and not labour intensive to give efforts at crime prevention a fighting chance.

Janine Rauch, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, South Africa

This paper is based on the main findings of a survey that included 38 police stations in Johannesburg and 22 in Pretoria. Station commissioners were asked about the causal and contributing factors of crime in their areas. These included socio-economic factors (unemployment, poverty and disrupted families); substance (alcohol and drug) abuse; and criminal organisations. Other factors that were identified which can also contribute towards crime included community attitudes and values, environmental factors, illegal immigrants and victim negligence.

Suggestions from the survey focused on enforcement strategies, sector policing, community policing, community police forums, anti-crime education for youth and victim support.

Enforcement strategies used by the police interviewed, included road blocks, joint operations with the defence force and traffic police, cordon and search operations and patrols. The survey respondents did not mention non-police oriented crime prevention (for example, within civil society), the role of alcohol or firearms in crime prevention or incorporating offenders (for example to address recidivism or diversion).

The survey respondents were asked for solutions to crime. They suggested community policing, more policing enforcement, better policing, more public education and improving the socio-economic situation of citizens.

BRIEFING ON PROGRAMME JOHANNESBURG

Programme Johannesburg was developed in response to the high rate of crime in the city (the highest in South Africa) and because Johannesburg has become the window through which the world views South Africa. It is expected that the Programme Johannesburg model can develop an effective structure within which to apply the SAPS Service Delivery Improvement Programme (SDIP).

The programme has four main components:

To achieve the programme aims, it was decided to focus on five areas: visible policing; crime information/intelligence; crime investigation; resource utilisation; and service delivery. These areas were implemented through improving conduct and providing training, using the ‘Effective Detective’ system in which records of crimes were kept, the process flow of documents was streamlined and made verifiable, dockets were screened and inspected to distinguish between crimes that can be solved or not, and ensuring that dockets met minimum standards.

Other projects within Programme Johannesburg include:

DIVERSION

Gavin McFadyen, Police National Headquarters, New Zealand

The Police Adult Diversion Scheme forms part of the prosecution process in New Zealand. After offenders are arrested and charged and if they appear eligible for diversion, they are remanded by the court to allow time to consider whether they should be diverted. If the offender meets all the conditions, the police will officially withdraw the charge.

The goals of diversion include:

The diversion process begins with a letter of apology to the victim – it is felt that an apology helps the offender to come to terms with his/her behaviour and to think about its effect on the victim. Reparation to cover any reasonable expense incurred by the victim is paid where needed. Where no cost was incurred by the victim, a donation is made to charity. Counselling is imposed only in a minority of cases, however, offenders often volunteer to attend. The most common type of counselling is anger management in assault cases or to deal with drug and alcohol abuse.

Community service is also undertaken in cases where the offender cannot afford to make a donation. Diversion enables the offender to work at a non-profit organisation for a more appropriate ‘sentence’ of community work. Other conditions may include curfews, being made to live at home or a ban on driving.

Failure in diversion is rare. The small proportion that fail to fulfil their conditions are prosecuted in the usual way. Fulfilling the conditions results in the police officially withdrawing the charge and fingerprints and photographs are destroyed. Through this process, 12 000 offenders were diverted in 1996, while 147 000 were prosecuted in the court.

Diversion benefits many sectors of the population, for example:

The penal practices in New Zealand have changed over the last fifteen years as informal initiatives to deal with offending outside the formal penal system have been developed. These have resulted in two trends: continued reliance and even expansion of the formal courts; and the development of different ways of responding to offences which are rooted in the community process.

The challenge is to incorporate the need to build on what exists and to know how to provide ongoing solutions in preventing crime through a variety of options.

SECTION 5: THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN CRIME PREVENTION

Increasingly, local government is being identified as the lynchpin in crime prevention. It is able to bring together local actors with national government and has a valuable role in initiating and running crime prevention programmes. However, empowering local government remains a challenge, as does the provision of resources.

DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE LOCAL CRIME PREVENTION

John Blackmore, Community Safety and Empowerment, United Kingdom

There are three key principles in developing effective local authority crime prevention work: councillors, a corporate approach and coalitions.

The first key principle is the importance of securing high level political support for crime prevention from local council politicians. In the borough of Brent in London, a special Council Committee has been established so that community safety decisions and issues can be built into the local political system. The current chair of the committee champions community safety work among other councillors and outside agencies, an important element of success.

The second key principle is the importance of developing a clear corporate local authority approach to crime prevention. Crime prevention must be seen as being a core responsibility of all the different departments of a council. For example, it should be included in the planning of the departments of Housing, Education, Environment, Sports and others.

The third key principle is to ensure that local authorities take the lead in developing crime prevention partnerships with agencies such as the police, probation service, business and companies. Partnership work is hard, but it does lead to results. The adoption of a partnership approach to crime prevention has become virtually a precondition for government support to crime prevention efforts in the UK.

For many years, it has been recognised that the police cannot maintain law and order on their own. In order to do their job effectively, the police need the support of the local community, in particular that of the agency that represents local people. In Brent, there are several examples of this co-operation, such as crime information sharing between the police and the local council, through the national Crimestoppers programme and through neighbourhood watch and neighbourhood pride projects.

LOCALL GOVERNMENT IN ACTION ON CRIME PREVENTION

Rory Robertshaw, Safer Cities: Greater Johannesburg, South Africa

Maintaining order at the city level has become a critical issue for the post-apartheid state. In Johannesburg, where some of the highest crime rates are recorded, the fear of crime is high and there is immediate concern for economic development as crime drives people away from the central business district to the safer suburbs. The control and prevention of crime has become a national priority and a large portion of the government’s focus and resources have been allocated to the restructuring of the criminal justice system.

However, crime reduction must go beyond the police using law enforcement, and include preventive interventions to reduce the social and economic factors which contribute to crime. Crime prevention elicits the possibility of local interagency action, including collaboration with NGOs and community structures. This approach also provides a mandate for alternative justice models such as mediation and diversion programmes, and community courts.

The Safer Cities: Greater Johannesburg strategy is led by the Metropolitan Council. The aim of this project is to reduce crime and the fear of crime, thereby creating a safer urban environment where economic enterprise and community life can flourish. The project is developing a range of focused crime prevention programmes in collaboration with all interested parties at local, provincial and national levels. This includes the police, the business sector, NGOs and community groups. The process to define this Safer Cities project had the following stages:

Detailed crime diagnoses – The city victim survey was an important part of this phase. It is not a once-off process, but rather a continuing and evolving one that increases in sophistication and reflects new developments in a rapidly changing environment.

Partnership construction – It is necessary to adopt a flexible and dynamic approach to develop partnerships embracing a broad range of local roleplayers to design, develop and implement local projects. There is also a need to avoid over-formalisation in the initial project stages.

Strategy development – This must flow from diagnostic work. Focus areas chosen in Johannesburg include:

Implementation and evaluation – Examples of programmes that are being undertaken, include:

Irene Cowley, NICRO, South Africa

A crime prevention forum was established by the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi Transitional Local Council in 1996 to address the threat of crime to the development of the city. The forum created a crime task team to consider proposals for crime prevention programmes, to develop a co-ordinated strategy to prevent the duplication of services and to foster co-operation among the stakeholders in the community. From the task team, an umbrella body comprising representatives of the local government, provincial departments, political parties, business, labour, religious organisations and community organisations was created, known as the Anti-Crime Network.

The Network serves as a plenary body with broad terms of reference and its management team acts in a monitoring and advisory capacity to the Network. The Anti-Crime Management Team includes representatives from government departments, local government, business and community organisations and has drafted a mission statement and a local crime prevention strategy and is undertaking the co-ordination of the latter’s implementation. The team has also conducted an audit of crime prevention projects and strategies and is working to identify gaps in services and to initiate projects, in addition to managing the network itself.

Currently, there is an organisational structure for the Anti-Crime Network, a vision and mission statement, intersectoral membership and representation, and scheduled monthly meetings. A grant was given by the Transitional Local Council to NICRO to fill the position as a project facilitator. The TLC has taken the lead in addressing the crime problem, and has elements that could ensure its success, given that its leadership and effective communication between the members and the forum continue to be represented by key roleplayers from the community.

Kelvin Barichievy, City Administrator, Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi, South Africa

In recognition of the serious threat of crime to development in the city, the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi Transitional Local Council (TLC) developed a process out of which an intersectoral Anti-Crime Network was established (see above). This Network has developed the following six lead projects:

Operation Safety – This includes community police forums, as well as Operation ‘Vimba’, a programme to encourage people to report crimes. A toll-free call system that will be operated by the Fire Brigade has been established to deal with calls for the SAPS, ambulance, fire and emergency services, and the traffic police. A number of call points have been established for easy accessibility.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Crime – Groups such as Christians Against Crime, Religion Against Crime, the SAPS, the departments of Education, Culture and Welfare, and Population Development, and the TLC are investigating developing programmes to:

Local Jobs for Local People – Crime is often linked to poverty, hunger and a feeling of despair. Therefore, job creation is essential to combat crime. The TLC has developed a Local Economic Development Programme (LED), that is initiating economic projects and creating partnerships with local businesses. Other initiatives include car watches, skills and adult education training, and creating specific sites to pick up casual labour.

Life After Prison – Offenders often experience great difficulties in being accepted back into the community, which may lead them back to crime. Programmes are being developed to address the training and preparation of former offenders and also to educate the community on reintegrating them.

Victim Support Centre – A centre, run on a volunteer basis, has been established. There are also programmes that offer victim assistance through Battered Women, Street Children, Life Line and Child Line.

Anti-Crime News – It is important to gain the support and understanding of the community. Therefore, it is essential to publicise the efforts that are taking place. The TLC is co-ordinating the collection of material from all sectors to be distributed to the various media.

Carolyn Whitzman, Toronto Task Force on Community Safety, Canada

The place where safety is sustained or eroded is within people’s neighbourhoods and communities. A safer community is created in a neighbourhood where teenage boys have a place to ‘hang out’ while learning skills; women in abusive relationships have a safe place to support one another; and families in neighbourhoods can have a place to get to know one another. Toronto’s success in its Safe City initiatives evolved out of a four phase process.

Phase 1: 1988-1991 – The Safe City Committee began with a report by city councillors about a group of neighbourhood women that had been terrorised by a serial rapist. Due to its origins, the Safe City Committee concentrated its focus on public violence against women. The first three years included initiatives such as: planning for a Safe City workshop, guideline development and developing bylaws for underground parking garages that set out minimum standards of lighting and maintenance.

Phase 2: 1991-1994 – The second stage report was developed by the Safe City Committee after surveying about 120 community groups and asking: “What are you doing to make the city safer and how can the city help?” The Committee extended its mandate to focus on all vulnerable groups. The most important recommendation of this report was a $500 000 programme called Breaking the Cycle of Violence. Small amounts of money were used to support initiatives such as drop-in centres, workshops and self-defence classes. A conference called Success Stories: Making Communities Safer was also held to bring together successful community safety initiatives in 1994. A video and training package on workplace assault and harassment was developed.

Phase 3: 1994-1997 – During this phase, a number of related initiatives were brought together in the Healthy City Office. This included the areas of drug abuse, community and race relations and senior citizens. The strategies developed under this Healthy City model included bringing together government and citizens to co-operate; looking at the root causes of crime; integrating related issues such as drug abuse, hate crime, and youth employment; and looking at economic, environmental, and equity issues as aspects of community safety.

Phase 4: 1997-2000 – As a result of the amalgamation of the City of Toronto with five suburban municipalities, the Task Force on Community Safety was developed. It includes members representing all sectors of the community such as city councillors, representatives from community organisations and neighbourhood groups, police, schools, agencies representing children, youth, women, people with disabilities and others. The current strategy has four stages, which will constantly be evaluated. During problem identification, the first stage, a survey was sent out to determine what issues around community safety are important to community members. Secondly, an inventory of existing and potential resources will be conducted. Thirdly, an analysis will be based on what was learned regarding problems and potential resources. Finally, the directions for action will be presented in a final report with recommendations.

Maria Rangiawha-Rautangatu, Safer Hamilton, New Zealand

Developing a relationship and establishing and maintaining a mutual understanding between the Maori and the Pakeha (white people) are essential in developing crime prevention programmes. Family violence is a significant issue that has driven Maori peoples to be disconnected from their ‘Greatness’ and their own values.

The Matua Whaangai programme provides Maori support services in Hamilton. An essential component in the success of this therapy is that it is run by Maori people for Maori people, which ensures that they are refocusing on their own cultural strengths to meet and overcome social challenges in appropriate ways through education, traditional cultural practices, traditional performances and a Marae-based justice system (airing problems in a traditional setting).

The Safer Hamilton – Zero Tolerance to Family Violence Charter links large government agencies with community organisations. The campaign has a reference group consisting of community groups such as the police, schools and clubs. Its strategic plan is based on a vision of a community in which family violence is not tolerated and positive and healthy lifestyles are encouraged.

There remain challenges to be overcome in furthering the work of Safer Cities – Hamilton which include upholding the Maori value system, generating resources for Maori concerns and getting the participation of Maori people in all policy processes. Only by realising the experience of a person, of a culture transcending time and space, can we as Maori begin to break the cycle of violence.

SECTION 6: THE ROLE OF COMMUNITIES IN CRIME PREVENTION

It is communities which have proven to be the catalyst for much of the work on crime prevention. As those who are most directly affected by crime, it is logical that they should be involved. However, it has taken time for governments to realise the benefit of close collaboration with local groups and the development of community initiatives is therefore a fairly recent event.

Helen Reeves, Victim Support, United Kingdom

It has taken 25 year to develop the Victim Support programme. In the beginning it was hard to convince people that attention to victims and witnesses was a necessity and not a luxury. Now, however, there are 370 groups across the country comprising 1 600 trained volunteers and 900 paid staff.

Last year 1.2 million cases were referred to Victim Support by letters and of these, 25 per cent met with a member of Victim Support. The police are required to inform all victims of violent or property crimes about Victim Support. The programme provides a person to talk to, not necessarily a counsellor, but specially trained volunteers from the same local community as the victim. Victim Support also provides advice and information about the justice system, the release of perpetrators and resource information and assistance.

The service is part of the criminal justice process, but it is still a battle to show that it is essential. The reason for its growth was the result of research done in the 1980s that showed high levels of dissatisfaction among victims with the police. Because it is the victims who are also witnesses, they are a fundamental part of the criminal justice system as they are required to give evidence. Therefore, if victims feel positive about their experience, they are more willing to participate in mediation programmes and get involved in other ways. Victim Support has proven itself as a model for ways in which those who are affected by crime can assist those who have been victims of crime.

Wilfried Scharf, Institute of Criminology, University of Cape Town, South Africa

The dilemma of developing countries is that both financial and human capital are limited and the state is often weak, particularly as far as crime prevention is concerned. In these circumstances, a scenario develops in which those who can afford to use private security; local power-holders (warlords, gang leaders, etc.) begin to take on some features of the state in ‘guaranteeing’ a particular vision or order; crime prevention is left to the local government and the police, both of whom are poorly resourced; and social movements take up crimefighting through anti-crime committees or forums, street committees, neighbourhood watches and vigilante movements. In a situation such as this, the need is clear for a powerful partnership on the right side of the law, comprising both state and civil society structures.

‘Coloured Townships’ Western Cape Programme – In Mitchell’s Plain, there are roughly 270 police personnel and 2 300 people belonging to neighbourhood watches. This project aims to equip both groups to work together, not only for patrolling and crimefighting, but for crime prevention and community problem-solving. Fifty people were trained in issues ranging from laws relating to citizen’s arrest, minimum force, bail proceedings, working relationship with police, to self-defence, domestic violence and child abuse, the role that neighbourhood watches should play, disaster management and mediation, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills, among others. The wide range of skills broaden the role that neighbourhood watches can play in the community and should help to target interventions and assistance to problem families by creating a referral network.

Claire Alderton, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, South Africa

This presentation was based on a qualitative study of the counselling process for crime victims and the personal cost to health care professionals who work with trauma daily. The trauma centre is used by 1 200 clients and the study consisted of 640 of these cases. Two areas were investigated, the event itself (type of crime, victim’s reaction, what weapon used) and the trauma intervention (counselling, impact on victim and counsellor).

It was found that, in 550 cases, a firearm was used and most of the people seen at the clinic were women and children. Generally, families were supportive towards members who had been victimised, with the exception of sexual assault and rape cases. In contrast, the criminal justice system was seen as being unsupportive and abusive. Trauma affects both the victim and those who work with victims. By learning more about their experience, we can become more knowledgeable about where service and support need to be improved.

SECTION 7: THE ROLE OF PARTNERSHIPS IN CRIME PREVENTION

The message most repeated at the conference was that without co-operation and collaboration there will be little success in crime prevention. The challenge of bringing together individuals, organisations, police and government is not to be underestimated, but practice has shown that crime prevention cannot be undertaken by one agency alone. It is through partnership that success in crime prevention will be realised.

The Fundamentals of Building Partnerships

Clive Begg, Australian Community Safety and Research Organisation, Australia

It appears that the vast majority of citizens have a desire to engage in developing safer, sustainable communities. Governments have also made commitments to crime prevention, but are often hampered in their efforts by the way in which they are structured. For example, sharing common views across government departments on a range of social issues is virtually non-existent and interdepartmental committee structures to co-ordinate resources (both human and financial) for issues of common concern have failed. Combining the two into a partnership can be difficult, as well as difficult to manage, but by recognising, acknowledging and responding to the difficulties, these can be overcome.

A sensible approach to partnerships is to develop standardised management protocols across government departments, since there is often a ‘tunnel vision approach’ where the department must meet certain departmental objectives that are subject to specific management strategies. Increasingly, there is a changing public perception that local government can deal with issues such as crime, health and education by creating community service departments. Additionally, crime prevention and community safety must be defined as the core business at all levels and across departments of government, while also educating the general public that crime prevention and community safely are the responsibility of all citizens.

A sustainable partnership needs to allow for the flow of information between government departments through a formalised process. Eventually an holistic set of strategies for crime prevention should be developed, of which the implementation will greatly assist in the long-term realisation of programmes with social justice outputs. Other issues that need to be acknowledged if meaningful and sustained community participation in crime prevention is to be achieved, are:

David Syme, National Campaign Against Violence and Crime, Australia

What mobilises local communities to take action to prevent crime? The answer depends on local circumstances, but often involves a particular incident or a feeling of ‘outrage’ about the decline of a neighbourhood. It is important to know where the community has come from to know where they might go and, more importantly, what dictates their action and motivation.

What mobilises local communities to join crime prevention partnerships? Many communities are asked to join formal and informal crime prevention partnerships, as opposed to the past when like-minded community individuals banded together in vigilante groups. There is a clear recognition that, without the involvement of the community, the action that is taken, will often be hollow and irrelevant. It must be remembered, however, that levels of involvement will always vary.

There are key lessons that have been learned on how to involve the community and to keep them involved. The most important among these are partnership, realism (a realistic approach), and a strategic approach.

Successful crime prevention partnerships involving community representation emerge with a shared agenda or vision, clarity of the goals and understanding of aims, a correct analysis of crime problems, clear leadership and perseverance, and membership suited to the goals and objectives. The allocation of resources and spreading costs across organisations and sectors are also important, as is honesty about what is possible and a willingness to listen to new ideas, particularly from the community sector.

How can national bodies support local communities to prevent crime? In Australia, the federal government provides support through the Attorney-General’s National Campaign Against Violence and Crime (NCAVAC). They provide support by:

Harvey McMurray, Fulbright Scholar, Makerere University, Uganda

Understanding is the key in bringing about social change. As the fear of crime increases, a crisis can develop in which the community responds through vigilantism, isolation, lowered confidence in the criminal justice system, and a lack of confidence and trust in the police.

Community policing is important because it brings together grassroots participation, police involvement, skills development for both the police and the community, and can lead to empowerment, the identification and use of local resources, community-building and increased dialogue which creates greater understanding and enhanced trust.

Community policing must include the police, education officials, government and local council members, youth, the media, business and religious community members. The steps which must be taken to implement a programme of community policing are an internal assessment of the crime situation, resources and skills assessment and training. A strong community policing programme will also need to address organisational change, the building of relationships among and between members, and a community needs assessment (i.e. issues of public safety, youth, community forums and community outreach).

As the process develops, monitoring and evaluation should also take place, for example, the monitoring of programme activities, evaluation of law enforcement, impact assessments and, where necessary, corrective initiatives. In such a way, there may eventually be an institutionalisation of the process and the necessary infrastructure to make community policing sustainable.

Peter Woods, Northumbria Police, United Kingdom

A number of steps are necessary to achieve an effective partnership. These include the need to organise the police force and maximise the number of officers on patrol; target initiatives to prevent and detect crime; support and protect victims; develop joint projects with local authorities; and pool financial and information resources.

Some initiatives which have built upon these steps in the UK include the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998; the establishment of youth action forums, which focus on bringing young people together and sharing information on how to prevent crimes; targeting of resources; monitoring and evaluation; and a process of sharing what works. Partnerships are the way for crime prevention to succeed, but they require time, effort and co-operation.

ROLES FOR PARTNERSHIPS

Anthony Minnaar, Technikon South Africa

Although the SAPS has been approached to form partnerships with individual security firms, and the NCPS has provided opportunities for partnerships within its structure, there are currently no fixed policy guidelines determining how such partnership should be formalised, even though some have already been formed at local police station level.

The security industry can offer several important functions to the SAPS:

However, such a partnership raises questions of accountability and responsibility in terms of arrest, detention and seizures. Problems can be encountered if this approach is adopted in terms of legal liability and civil claims which may occur, since not all security personnel are trained to the same level as police officers. The current limits on powers in terms of the arrest of suspects and the search and seizure of property that private security officers have, and the lack of strict enforcement of a national code of conduct, including a dress code, adversely affect the performance of security duties.

There is also a limited understanding and knowledge among the police of security companies. They are often not aware of their functions, activities and duties and the role that they can play in providing safety and security to neighbourhoods. There are legitimate fears that, by giving police powers to security personnel, they might take the law into their own hands. There are also concerns that security companies may misuse or abuse crime information obtained from the police for their own purposes.

In order for such a proposal to work, there would have to be criteria and standards for the partnership, including standardisation of training for security personnel, including police functioning, arrest procedures, rights of civilians regarding search and seizures, crime scene procedures and human rights principles; the need to work within the framework of the law; a code of conduct for all security companies; and the registration of all personnel.

What remains, is to decide how to make use of the resources offered by the private security industry and to implement the process in an organised manner. They can assist and support the police by bridging the gap in policing efforts, but cannot be contemplated as replacing the police.

Matthew Smith and Tanya Goldman, Community Agency for Social Enquiry, South Africa

The Western Cape Community Policing Project (WCCPP) was a two-year initiative established to develop community empowerment while negotiating a new relationship with the police in Community Police Forums (CPFs). It was meant to include internal training for the police, but this did not take place, and the WCCPP experienced some resistance from within the police, even at senior levels. The role of the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE) was to evaluate the WCCPP at the project’s conclusion. The evaluation included qualitative and quantitative methods: an analysis workshop with WCCPP staff and the Joint Steering Committee; in-depth interviews with the chairpersons of the CPFs, station commissioners, and community liaison officers at 21 sample sites; a survey of all stations in the Western Cape; and ten focus groups to gauge broader community perceptions.

The WCCPP was managed by a Joint Steering Committee which included representatives from funders, NGOs that participated in initiating the project, the MEC for Safety and Security, and police in the province. The Western Cape is separated into four policing areas, each with a co-ordinator and a fieldworker. The project developed the skills of these staff, particularly fieldworkers, through formal training and informally through the way it encouraged staff to work. Training in community facilitation was provided to approximately 100 community members. The training included facilitation, dispute resolution and chairing meetings. It proved unrealistic to expect facilitators to do unpaid work as part of the project and to sustain the CPFs in the long term. It is suggested that community facilitators should be integrated into the project organisation at an early stage. Their roles need to cover a wider range of activities and resources should be allocated for remuneration.

Activities undertaken by the WCCPP included facilitating new partnerships between communities and police at local level in CPFs, workshops with the police and the community, and action research to inform communities of the project’s intervention. A strength of the WCCPP was the integration of facilitation and research.

The WCCPP relied heavily on education as a method of building relationships between sectors of the community and the police at a local level. For this to be sustained, however, a more action-oriented process is needed.

The WCCPP played an important role in community participation and representation by giving marginal groups (such as poor communities) an opportunity to learn about community policing. The WCCPP also was successful in dealing with party political conflict through workshop education, with most CPF chairpersons underlining the importance of remaining non-aligned politically.

However, there is a need to focus on CPFs to take action towards long-term problem-solving programmes dealing with issues such as domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse. Partnerships are being formed, but are often between the leaderships of the community and the police while there still needs to be broader community involvement.

The WCCPP made an important contribution towards promoting constructive community-police liaison through workshops. There remains a need to develop future interventions that focus on planning and skills development in the medium and long term.

Rosemary Shapiro, NICRO, South Africa

NICRO’s Whistle Week Campaign undertook to involve various sectors of the community to work towards a safer South Africa and highlighted the need for co-operative ventures. The national campaign was focused on “winning back the freedom of our homes, streets, and communities” by relying on partnerships between individuals, neighbourhoods, cities, police, criminal justice personnel and business corporations.

Whistle Week 1998 was the largest anti-crime campaign run by an NGO to date in South Africa. Each day was dedicated to specific events, focusing on prayers for peace, prisoners for peace, workers for peace, youth for peace, communities for peace, media for peace, and play for peace. The initiative was supported by a large media and marketing campaign. It involved more than 250 supporters, 2 000 events, and the distribution of over 300 000 whistles. The whistles were to signify ‘blowing the whistle on’ corruption and crime.

SECTION 8: MONITORING AND IMPLEMENTATION

Once the partners in preventing crime have been identified, and the vision, goals and aims drawn up, the challenge is to implement the proposed programme. What has been learned in other initiatives can provide valuable information. For crime prevention to move forward, it is also important to share ways of implementing these programmes and best practices from around the world. In order to decide what are, in fact, the lessons from any programme, a process of monitoring and evaluation must be incorporated into the programme.

Sohail Husain, Crime Concern, United Kingdom

It is necessary to go beyond the advocacy of partnerships towards issues of implementation. Presented below are five tips for a successful partnership, based on the UK experience at municipal level.

Get partnership members and structure right – Most potential participants, including the police and municipal services, are usually obvious, but the participation of public sector actors, such as health services and public transportation, are also needed. There must be a management group which is kept small and involves ‘senior’ representatives who can make decisions. It should use a facilitating and enabling approach to adopt a problem-solving and progress-monitoring role. All partners need to be kept informed and involved, by using two-way communication through thematic task groups to inform management. In addition, someone must have the responsibility of ensuring that decisions are implemented.

Work systematically and strategically – Weak partnerships are characterised by being reactive with decisions made on an ad hoc basis, and with unclear objectives and uncertain achievements. Partnerships need to be led through information, and discussions must be based on careful analyses of problems, appraisals of current activities and knowledge of what works. In addition, it is important that energy should be targeted and priorities limited to those that can make a difference. At this stage, monitoring and evaluation become crucial. It is important to be outcome-focused.

Ensure local ownership – Partnerships need to address the agendas of local groups, involve their decisions and empower them to deliver. This may be done through the presence of representatives in the partnership and management group and through consultation from the beginning of any process aimed at defining and solving problems.

Pursue a balanced work programme – The greatest impact is through a combination of different approaches: i.e., law enforcement, situational prevention, and social crime prevention. This also provides the greatest opportunity for a wide range of partners to have a stake in the programme. There should be a balance between short and long-term benefits, and the programme should include both free-standing crime prevention initiatives (i.e. car crime project) and efforts to move crime prevention into the mainstream (i.e. youth provision, health education).

Invest in capacity-building – Many partnerships bring people together who are experts in their fields, but who know nothing about prevention, who may have concerns about working with certain partners or are unaccustomed to partnership ideas, and are worried about encroachment onto their turf. These partners need to learn what works, build trust and confidence, and learn about effective partnerships (sharing, pooling resources, common goals).

One of the main functions of Crime Concern UK is capacity-building. It is delivered through, among others, training courses and publications. By moving from rhetoric to reality, avoiding the mistakes that have been made and improving the quality of activities, the scale of impact can be increased.

Marnix Eysink Smeets, Consultant, The Netherlands

Crime prevention can be compared to taking up drumming: it is new and there is no idea how it should sound. What is needed is patience, practice and endurance. Much of the co-operation in crime prevention results from people feeling that they have to, but do not really see it as useful. In addition, because much of the work on crime prevention is new, many people do not yet believe that it will work, or have different priorities for the type of activities that should take place.

What is needed is a clear vision of crime prevention, and one that can be easily communicated to everyone. For example, the iceberg model looks at the situation from the top and forgets what is underneath. In this model, people generally think that they need the police and the criminal justice system to prevent crime, the police think the situational factors need to be addressed, criminologists say the social problems and deprivation factors also need to be considered, while sociologists point to the effects of culture, norms and values.

An effective crime prevention approach looks holistically at all four layers with the same energy. In the Netherlands, crime prevention thinking during the past twenty years was top-down. First the police, then situational factors, then social prevention; property crimes decreased – while overall crime increased. This shows how the first two layers of the iceberg model apply to property crime, but do not affect violent crime. It therefore emphasises the necessity of an holistic approach.

Omar Valley, Cape Town Safer Cities, South Africa

Within South Africa, there is widespread agreement that crime has reached unacceptable levels and it is obvious that crime has become enormously costly to the government and the South African economy. In a Cape Town victim survey, conducted by the Institute for Security Studies, almost half of Capetonians (49,6 per cent) were victims of crime over a five-year period. It confirmed that African and coloured residents are mostly affected by violent crimes, while whites are generally affected by property crimes.

The Safer Cities Programme (SCP) in Cape Town, introduced by Habitat, has adopted a multi-agency approach to crime prevention at local government level. The programme is based on the philosophy of the NCPS with a focus on promoting social crime prevention, aimed at reducing the socio-economic factors conducive to criminality through the targeting of particular causal factors underlying crime rates.

The involvement of local government should also be placed within a development context, where local government is committed to work with citizens and groups within the community to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic and material needs, as well as to improve the quality of their lives. The SCP is committed to meet the requirements in terms of partnerships with communities and the concept of co-operative governance.

The SCP’s aims are to prioritise, co-ordinate, focus and implement crime prevention programmes in the city and surrounding areas. The objectives are, among others:

This integrated approach includes co-operation and partnerships with external agencies such as community peace forums, the police, the Multi-Agency Delivery Action Mechanism (MADAM), Business Against Crime, neighbourhood watch groups and street committees in initiatives aimed at promoting community safety.

The Cape Town SCP has developed a multi-departmental approach and partnership strategies around several key principles:

Monitoring and assessing the Cape Town SCP will occur on a monthly basis to evaluate the value of current projects in terms of project management and delivery. On an annual basis, an assessment will be done based on a cost benefit analysis, the planning of projects, efficiency, the reduction in crime rates, and the impact on crime prevention.

In less than three months, the SCP has made significant progress. It has: