CHAPTER 8

KEY STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT ISSUES FACING THE NMMM

Published in Monograph No 103, November 2004

City Safety
Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality's Crime Reduction Strategy

Sibusiso Masuku and Traggy Maepa

The challenges facing the NMMM in terms of safety and crime reduction are:

• the need for improved and more visible law enforcement, in terms of policing, traffic and bylaw enforcement;
  
  

• the need for different departments within the metro, as well as beyond local government, as well as non-governmental organisations, to work together to prevent crime and its causes; and
  
  

• the need for interventions that inspire public confidence in the metro, and the police, and thereby improve public willingness to participate in crime prevention projects. These would need to have a visible impact and be short term in nature.

The existence and mandate of the safety and security business unit provides the metro with an opportunity to respond to these needs in an integrated and innovative manner. It also allows the council to pursue its mandate as set out in the White Paper on Local Government and the White Paper on Safety and Security: the co-ordination of crime prevention activities and alignment of local government functions with safety and security needs in the area. Several key issues should shape the NMMM’s approach to crime prevention. These are covered below.

Management and co-ordination of the strategy

The NMMM, like most municipalities, is already engaged in a number of activities that contribute to crime prevention. However, most of these occur in isolation of each other. There might also be duplication of some services offered by the municipality with those provided by other government departments and role players outside government. The research identified various services that contribute directly or indirectly to crime reduction. The municipality provides many of these services. National and provincial government, the private sector, NGOs and CBOs, also provide several crime reduction activities. The municipality is required to co-ordinate these services.

Recommendations

• The NMMM safety and security business unit should establish a crime reduction committee. The committee could include other business unit managers, the crime prevention coordinators, and two councillors from the safety and security portfolio committee, that is, the chairperson and his/her deputy. Tasks of the committee could include:

  • formulating municipal crime reduction policy;

  • establishing formal liaison structures with other role players;

  • ensuring the incorporation of crime reduction activities into IDPs;

  • providing strategic direction for crime prevention, by prioritising proposed activities;

  • managing the budget allocation for crime prevention;

  • determining projects, responsibilities and time frames;

  • monitoring and evaluating project implementation and impact;

  • identifying staff needs for training in crime reduction;

  • initiating and leading public awareness campaigns on crime prevention.
    
    

• The metro should appoint at least four crime reduction coordinators. Tasks of the crime prevention coordinators could include:

  • liaising with various stakeholders (internally and externally);

  • initiating crime prevention projects;

  • facilitating the implementation of projects;

  • facilitating co-operation with stakeholders;

  • drafting terms of references with stakeholders;

  • managing projects;

  • facilitating crime prevention training where necessary;

  • monitoring projects;

  • documenting project activities.
    
    

• Crime prevention coordinators should lead a process of analysing work plans from other relevant business units. This will enable the metro to develop a realistic integrated crime reduction action plan.

Partnerships

The safety and security business unit is currently co-ordinating activities of the NMMM safety forum. The forum aims to bring together all stakeholders for the planning and development of joint crime reduction projects. However, few forum stakeholders attend the meetings regularly. As it stands, the safety forum is not a viable structure for co-ordinating crime prevention partnership activities. The metro council should reconsider its approach in this regard.

Recommendations

• Instead of attempting to gather all partners in one forum, the municipality could form bi-lateral partnership agreements with each stakeholder. Meetings would then be held when necessary with relevant stakeholders.
  
  

• Partnerships should be project based, rather than having an ongoing set of ‘partners’ some of whom are not working on any particular project with the metro. Once projects are identified, partnership agreements would determine the tenure of the project and the relationship with the particular partner.
  
  

• The municipality should formalise their partnerships with key stakeholders, such as the SAPS. Partnership agreements should be drafted, and should stipulate what each partner’s obligations are, and how the project will be implemented. Each project should have clear objectives, performance indicators and time frames.

Municipal bylaws

A number of bylaws could be used more effectively by the NMMM for crime reduction purposes. Interviews with metro councillors and officials revealed that bylaw enforcement receives little attention. The reason for this is that the metro is still consolidating its bylaws. In some instances, completely new bylaws need to be developed, which is a lengthy legal procedure. The process in the metro has been slow – most senior officials were still unsure about the status of the draft bylaws.

Recommendations

• The municipality should speed up the process of rationalising and consolidating all the existing bylaws and the introduction of new bylaws where necessary.
  
  

• Once the above process is complete, the metro should engage in a public awareness campaign about bylaws and their enforcement.
  
  

• The metro council could consider consolidating its existing traffic, security and bylaw enforcement capacity into one ‘integrated enforcement unit’ for the metropolitan area. This would, for example, enable health, building and traffic officials to work together to enforce bylaws in a more authoritative and cost-effective manner. To do this, the council would need to consider the implications for organisational structure, i.e. possibly moving enforcement personnel out of their traditional departments, or changing their lines of accountability. A strong and visionary leader would need to be appointed to head such an enforcement unit, and to ensure public and political support for new enforcement approaches. It would also be important to invest in some specialised training for the unit. A training needs assessment would need to be conducted among members.

Public participation

Public participation in existing crime reduction efforts is low and often unsustainable. There is, however, a clear willingness by the public to assist in such projects. Council should make use of this by developing a strategy that builds on existing projects in the area where possible.

Recommendations

• The municipality should strengthen existing crime prevention projects and encourage new business and community based initiatives.
  
  

• In particular, the victim support and diversion services that currently exist should be developed and extended to New Brighton, KwaZakhele, KwaNobuhle, Motherwell and Bethelsdorp where violent crime is a particular problem.

Targeting a few crime problems only

Communities across the country are affected by many different crime problems. However, crime prevention efforts are much more likely to succeed if they are focused on only a few crimes and geographic areas. Moreover, given the shortages of resources facing the metro and the SAPS, the imperative to select a few crime problems is even greater.

The crime analysis indicated that the key offences in the NMMM area that a strategy might target are robbery and home burglary. Other crimes that could be considered are rape, assault and theft out of motor vehicles.

In terms of where the strategy should focus its attention, the highest volume of crime was recorded in the police station areas of KwaZakhele, New Brighton, KwaNobuhle, Motherwell, Bethelsdrop and Port Elizabeth Central. In all the townships listed above, both burglary and violent crime (robbery and rape) are a concern, whereas PE Central experiences high levels of burglary and theft. Other areas of concern are public resorts and tourist attraction areas. Attention will need to be given to these areas is crucial since crime is likely to dominate media reports (and so influence public perceptions about crime in the metro generally) and could affect tourism to the area.

Recommendations

• The strategy should focus on three crimes: residential burglary, robbery and rape. Projects to combat all three crimes should be implemented in specific areas where these offences have been identified as problematic.
  
  

• The strategy should select among the following areas for prioritisation: the townships of KwaZakhele, New Brighton, KwaNobuhle, Motherwell and Bethelsdrop for the crimes of burglary, robbery and rape, and PE Central for burglaries and robberies. PE Central is also important because it is the economic centre of the Metro. Some public areas, resorts and tourist attraction areas will also need to be prioritised.
  
  

• Although the major focus of the strategy should be in the abovementioned areas, changes in crime trends throughout the metro need to be monitored on an ongoing basis. Certain interventions, particularly those centred on policing, may lead to the displacement of crime to neighbouring areas.