Implementation of Community Safety Forums in South Africa: Facts and Findings

By MUZUKHONA BUTHELEZI

The Implementation of Community Safety Forums in South Africa presents research findings on the status of implementing this government policy aimed at consolidating and coordinating crime prevention projects at a local level of governance.
CSFs aim to provide community safety and prevent crime at the level at which it occurs. The book cuts across different academic fields: public administration and management (policy implementation), local governance (the role of municipalities in community safety) and criminal justice (crime prevention).
It provides the research methodology applicable to the public sector that aided data gathering and its interpretation to reach academic conclusions and recommendations the government can use; not only in implementing CSFs, but also implementing public policies in general.
The Implementation of Community Safety Forums in South Africa provides a case study to modules in its identified fields of study and can assist students to understand and apply the methodology in the public sector. It can also assist public administration and management and CJS departments improve policy implementation to ensure government provides services to communities. The book is also a useful comparison for CSF implementation globally.

About the Author

Prof MW Buthelezi is currently an Associate Professor at the University of South Africa (Unisa) in the College of Law, Department of Criminology and Security Science. He holds the following qualifications:

•Doctoral Degree: Policing
•Magister: Public Management
•Magister: Governance and Political Transformation
•B.Tech: Policing)
•Bachelor of Biblical Theology
•National Diploma: Policing
•Certificate in Conducting Research
•Certificate in Work-study.

He worked as senior lecturer at the University of Zululand, lecturer at the Tshwane University of Technology, researcher at the South African Parliament and Lieutenant-Colonel in the South African Police Services. He has attended and presented papers at various conferences and published a number of research articles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MUZUKHONA BUTHELEZI
• Release date: Jul 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005691493

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Copyright © 2022 Muzukhona Buthelezi

First edition 2022

Published by Muzukhona Buthelezi at Smashwords

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Published by Muzukhona Buthelezi using Reach Publishers’ services,

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1

Background Of The Book

1.1 Introduction

In 1994, South Africa changed the form of government from the apartheid to a democratic system. According to Homel (2010), the elected government’s plan was the creation of a democratic, non-racial, and non-sexist future and that was documented in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). This document acknowledged that ‘peace and security for all’ was essential to the wider project of nation-building, but marginal to the immediate task of meeting people’s basic needs for land, housing, water, transport, health and social welfare.

Controlling crime was a matter of bringing the police and other agencies responsible for safety and security under democratic control; preventing crime required that remedies be found for the political, social and economic injustices of the past. Hughes (2007) argued that when the RDP did not yield the required results regarding crime prevention, the government published a National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) in 1996. Over a decade later, the NCPS remains by far the most comprehensive statement of official policy on the subject. Unlike the RDP, the NCPS explicitly linked preventing crime to promoting economic growth and development. Safety was an essential pre-condition for the development of a successful society. Community Safety Forums are an initiative that is aimed at ensuring such successful societies as alluded to by NCPS.

National Crime Prevention Strategy also faced some challenges that will be discussed in the following chapters of this book, which then prompted the government to come up with another revised strategy to deal with crime prevention in the country. White Paper on Safety and Security was then published in 1998 and it acknowledged the long-term preventive effects of social policy initiatives in housing, education and health being undertaken largely for other reasons. It went on to call for a range of developmental interventions such as early learning, parenting and employment training to be targeted at groups thought to be at risk of offending.

Homel (2010) believed that in doing so the government laid itself open to the charge of either criminalising social policy by making crime-proneness the trigger for programmes which should be available to all citizens or (less plausibly) of attempting to socialise crime prevention by using spurious claims to preventive effectiveness to justify the introduction of policies which might (or might not) be desirable for other reasons. The government later announced an Urban Renewal Programme (URP) in 1999, and the transformation of social policy into the handmaiden of crime prevention seemed to be complete as a range of social and welfare measures were targeted on areas selected because of their ‘impermissible’ levels of crime and violence. The URP also did not meet crime prevention needs in the country like the other strategies before it.

The twists and turns in the relationships between preventing and reacting to crime and other social policy initiatives in health, welfare, education and training evident in the early years of South Africa’s new democracy reflect the difficulty of disentangling crime from other closely inter-connected, and often mutually reinforcing, social problems. This therefore propelled government and policy writers to come up with policies that were going to address the causes of crime through the involvement of various stakeholders, because crime cut across a number of government departments and other non-state actors such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and the community at large.

Community Safety Forum (CSF) policy is one of government’s attempt to prevent crime and aims to involve the community in crime prevention at local level. The rationale for CSFs is to improve the coordination of Criminal Justice Departments to ensure effective crime prevention at local (municipal) level. This coordination will not only facilitate interaction between Criminal Justice Departments, but also ensure development in a particular municipal area. Crime can negatively affect development, whether through the physical destruction of infrastructure or through its effects on investment. It is because of this reason Bowles et al., (2005) posit that it becomes difficult to persuade investors to invest capital in economic activity if they are worried that the returns from these endeavours are at risk. Crime prevention has potential to benefit communities both through reduction of victimisation and through its beneficial effect on development.

CSFs involve communities through various civil society organisations and community structures in each municipality in planning and, to a lesser extent, implementing crime prevention projects. It should be noted from the outset that CSFs are not an implementing structure, but a coordinating structure. Role-players plan activities to prevent crime in a particular locality, with each role-player identifying their role. Once the project has been implemented, the role-players convene to report successes and challenges and inform one another of their activities.

Civilian Secretariat for Police (2012) states that the delivery of safety programmes is necessary for development and such programmes focus on socio-economic factors which inhibit crime and address the underlying causes of crime in a multi-faceted and multi-agency approach. This paradigm shift is directed at changing crime prevention which was perceived to be driven by one agency (the police) towards a more safety and community-oriented approach. This development created the opportunity for a safety and security policy and reform at local level, moving towards transformation of local policing and the introduction of improved safety.

The document further states that crime prevention initiatives can only work if they meet the specific needs and priorities of a particular community because crime varies from one place to the next, and thus requires the development of tailor-made solutions. National government might provide frameworks to encourage and support crime prevention, but implementation must take place at local level. Reducing and preventing crime should be central to municipal planning functions.

CSFs therefore play a pivotal role in coordinating crime prevention initiatives in a particular municipality to ensure that such initiatives are prioritised and therefore ensure that safety informs the whole development plan of the municipality. Pheiffer (2013) argued that development projects which do not cater for crime prevention principles run the risk of increasing the burden on resources of criminal justice. With local government being the seat of service delivery, CSFs are ideally positioned to provide feedback on the efficacy of policy implementation. Information sharing also assists to identify gaps in implementation and making adjustments to national policy.

Edwards and Hughes (2009) made the following summation of community safety in general and CSFs in particular. They stated that Community Safety Forums reflect a re-articulation of powers and responsibilities in and between the state, private interests, and civil society. These partnership arrangements and inter-agency working agreements are designed to foster crime prevention initiatives and to enhance community safety, primarily through the cultivation of community involvement and the dissemination of crime prevention ideas and practices. Community safety as a policy sits at the intersection of attempts by the state to deliver welfare and security and policing in local communities.

Community safety is also associated with generation of greater participation and leadership from local communities in promoting quality of life and not just tackling social harms classified as crimes. As a long-term outcome, community safety is linked to communitarian ambition of replacing fragile, fearful, and insecure communities with residents confident enough to take responsibility for their own safety. Community safety as a policy discourse is viewed as feeding off two interconnected features of government thinking, namely a political discourse of civic communitarianism and a modernising public management project. Community safety straddles the fault line of repressive crime control and preventive, welfare-oriented, interventions.

1.2 Problems Facing the Implementation Of CSFs In South Africa

The research that informs this book was conducted in two South African provinces, therefore problems discussed are those experienced in those provinces. Those two provinces are the Western Cape (WC) and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The problems mentioned are not conclusive but were found during the research period which was 2013 – 2015.

The introduction to this chapter discussed the reasons for the implementation of CSFs in South Africa in general and in the research area. The first identified problem was that these forums are coordinated and implemented by two different government institutions. The document that is supposed to guide the implementation of these forums states that the initiation and establishment of CSFs is the responsibility of the municipality. The problem started in 2010 when the Civilian Secretariat for Police instructed the provincial department of Community Safety and Liaison (CS&L) to implement this policy for the municipalities. According to the document that is supposed to regulate the implementation of CSFs, these forums are municipal-based safety structures, and the department of CS&L must assist municipalities with the structuring and establishment thereof.

The document instructs the department to play an advisory role, but not to implement for the municipality or even implement and expect the municipality to take over the running thereafter. The reason behind the role is because the municipality lacks crime prevention skills and capacity, so part of advising should also include capacitating municipal officials so they can take over the implementation and running of these forums. If done this way, it eliminates role confusion that can emanate from two government institutions doing the same thing. It makes the definition of roles much clearer.

The research conducted by Safrika Development Services in 2006 revealed that for CSFs to thrive, they must be driven by the municipality. With the approach taken by the department of CS&L, this implies that even though CSFs are established by the department of CS&L, they will still be located and led at a local municipality. This is confusing, as this department does not have any control over how the municipality is run. How will they then oversee the implementation? It is also not clear why this department is not playing a more active role in assisting in the development and implementation, thereafter, leaving municipalities to implement the policy. This on its own can spell the disastrous failure of the policy before it is even started.

The possible reason is that municipalities may be reluctant to own forums that were implemented by the department. The department, on the other hand, might spend a lot of time implementing the forums, but then neglect some of the related functions (support and advice) regarding the implementation of this policy. Some key stakeholders might not form part of the implementation process because they may regard such implementation as the interference by the department in the functioning of municipalities.

To try and mitigate this problem, the municipality must be involved from the very beginning if the department establishes and coordinates CSFs. Meetings should be held where the issue can be addressed, and the idea sold to the municipality to ensure a buy-in. Allow the municipality to initiate the implementation on their own and then be assisted as necessary. While this may only mitigate the problem, the following questions remain unsolved:

• Will the department summon municipalities to explain why CSFs are not functioning accordingly?

• What will be the role of the department should municipalities be unwilling to take control of the established forums?

The solution to these problems might be the establishment of an Intergovernmental Forum as provided by the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act (No. 13 of 2005) to ensure that the leading institutions play their roles as required by the policy for proper implementation of the CSFs. The establishment of this forum must be initiated by the department of CS&L and all role-players must commit, by signing the document that states their roles in the implementation of the policy. The department must interact with Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) at provincial level and such interaction and agreement between these parties must be cascaded down to municipalities. If this is not done, municipalities might refuse to play their parts.

The involvement of COGTA is necessary because it is the department that is tasked with ensuring the proper functioning of the municipalities. This department is responsible for the formulation of policies and providing an oversight over the implementation of these policies and gives legislative guidelines to municipalities. According to Civilian Secretariat for Police (2010) one of the functions of COGTA in the implementation of CSFs is to ensure synergy and proper functioning of the CSF committees. This means that the CSF committee members function in a coordinated manner.

If COGTA does not form part of the implementation, the department of CS&L does not have the power to question the municipalities on their failure to implement the policy on CSFs. The only way that the department of CS&L can question the process of implementing this policy by municipalities is through Intergovernmental Forums. These forums are aimed at enabling provincials and locals to coordinate the work of the CSFs.

It is therefore clear that leading and implementation of CSFs should be left with the municipalities, at both district and local level. This would surely minimise the overlapping of functions and clear up any confusion that might occur because of the simultaneous implementation of CSFs by a government department and a local sphere of government.

An ANC discussion document on the purpose of CSFs raises a further concern on how CSFs are perceived by the ruling party. It argues that CSFs are to extend Community Police Forums (CPFs). If the objective of CSFs is to extend the CPFs, how will this be achieved? The two forums are similar and seek to achieve the same objective (communities’ involvement in their own safety), but they function differently. Their mandates and jurisdiction are not the same.

According to Civilian Secretariat for Police (2010), CPFs are neighbourhood-based and lay the foundation for a working relationship between local citizens and the police. The CSFs are designed to identify long-term development and welfare challenges to pre-empt crime. They are located at local municipality level and aim to coordinate different role-players in crime prevention.

As noted earlier, both these forums aim to involve the community in the war against crime. The difference is that CSFs mainly focus on crime prevention, while the CPFs are involved in the entire spectrum of policing activities, namely, both crime prevention and law enforcement. They also ensure police visibility and accountability. The CPFs are strongly linked to a single department in the Justice Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) cluster, the police department, while the CSFs aim to improve the functioning of the entire JCPS.

Given the above argument, it is clear that one structure is not a mere extension of the other. Rather, they can assist each other to function properly. The CSFs could free the CPFs to concentrate on the law enforcement aspect of policing, ensuring police accountability, as well as gaining access to resources that they struggled to receive in the past. For their part, the CPFs will inform the CSFs on the identified crime prevention programmes and projects that they intend to implement.

In this way, CPFs could assist the CSFs by representing the community that forms part of the CPF, and report back to the community on the CSFs’ programmes and projects, including participation in the implementation thereof. In their Community Safety Forums Model, Safrika Development Services (2006) argues that a CSF model should be structured in such a way that it is acceptable to stakeholders (predominantly bureaucrats) who feel most comfortable working within fairly rigid systems but should be sufficiently flexible to address local dynamics.

Another cause for concern is that, while policy exists on the implementation of CSFs, there are no implementation manuals/guidelines that outline a step-by-step implementation process. Therefore, each CS&L coordinator is free to determine the best way to implement the policy. However, some of these coordinators may not have the required capacity to do so and would rather depend on the policy writer for assistance and directives. The CSFs policy writers are based at national office, namely, Civilian Secretariat for Police and were not part of the implementation process to clear any uncertainties that implementers might have.

The policy contains several gaps and some unclear provisions which might affect the implementation thereof. Rauch (2002) warned that the lack of implementation guidelines was one of the reasons that both the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) and the White Paper on Safety and Security (WPSS) failed to achieve their intended objectives.

What will then be different about the implementation of CSFs without guidelines? One cannot do things in the same way and expect different results. It seems like policymakers in South Africa do not learn from past mistakes of other policymakers. Put differently, it looks like the government does not take community safety seriously enough to study why crime prevention and safety policies do not yield the required results.

The issues raised above are what informed the research that led to the writing of this book. The intention was to investigate the whole process; identify the problems regarding the implementation of CSFs in South Africa and come up with researched recommendations on how this process can be improved going forward.

Recommendations cannot only be confined to the implementation of CSFs alone but the implementation of any government policy in general. This means that the book is useful to students doing criminology, crime prevention, safety, policing, criminal justice, and public administration as well as public management. The book can also be used by both academics and policy practitioners.

Identified problems indicate the disconnections and complexities that exist between the CSF policy provisions on how the policy should be implemented and the actual implementation thereof. Initial problems that were identified and discussed regarding disconnection between policy provisions and how the policy is implemented was that this policy is implemented by CS&L, but the forums are located at municipal level and are expected to be sustained by municipalities going forward.

COGTA, despite being the department responsible for proper functioning of municipalities and, according to CSFs policy, responsible for ensuring the synergy and proper functioning of CSF committees, is not part of the implementation process. This poses endless problems in the implementation process. If COGTA is not an integral part of the implementation process, municipality will not account for the non-implementation of CSFs.

The ANC understanding of CSFs is also not in line with CSFs policy which regards these two forums as independent structures that are structured differently and have different intentions. This difference can be reconciled by policy writers by coming up with step-by-step implementation guidelines that will clearly indicate the difference and also reconcile such differences in the implementation process.

These identified disconnections between CSFs policy provisions (rhetoric) and implementation (actualisation) thereof are intended to depict what may be a deep-rooted cause of policy failure, because the book compares policy provisions against what is taking place in reality, regarding the implementation of the policy. The disconnection between policy provisions and policy implementation is regarded by Cloete et al (2007), as a possible cause for policy failure. Such failure was also noted by Thomas & Grindle (2008) when asserting that disconnection or deviation might be caused by lack of sufficient human resources for implementing a policy as envisaged, defective management process or organisational cultures that obstruct, rather than promote, successful policy implementation. A combination of these implementation defects results in a general policy failure.

Cloete et al (2007) conclude this argument by stating that if these resource constraints also affect policy design, the whole policy system suffers from systemic incapacity to draft policy plans and transform policy rhetoric into visible and durable policy outputs and outcomes. This policy pathology can become a vicious spiral of decline in policy capacity and such decline can be