PIETERMARITZBURG: 2 AUGUST 2007  

Honourable Speaker 

The often declared pride and joy of the ANC government at all levels - national, provincial and local - is that in everything it does, it supposedly follows international best practice. 

Community policing, however, is one area where domestic practice is at odds with international best practice and we in the Official Opposition feel it an obligation to urge the government to observe its own precept and re-think the decentralisation of specialised police units along the lines of international best practice. 

This is one of the most profound observations we as Community Safety and Liaison Portfolio Committee made during last year’s international study tour to Northern Ireland and London. This is also one of key recommendations the portfolio committee put forward in its report. 

The IFP reacted with shock last year to the decision to close down all SAPS's Family Violence, Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Units countrywide and redeploy their staff to ordinary police stations. The decision was taken by the SAPS as part of a skills audit and an overhaul of the police services. 

The IFP was particularly shocked to see such a step taken shortly after the national Minister of Safety and Security released statistics showing a dramatic increase in crimes against children. Indeed our children were set to suffer the consequences of this uninformed administrative decision that would deprive them of protection the Family Violence, Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Units could offer them. 

We in the IFP were particularly concerned about the impact of the decision in the Umzimkhulu Policing Area and in the Midlands which only a year earlier, in 2005, had statistically the highest conviction rates for child abuse in KwaZulu Natal. 

Worldwide, specialised police units exist within many law enforcement organisations, either for dealing with particular types of crime, such as traffic law enforcement and crash investigation, homicide, or fraud; or for situations requiring specialised skills, such as underwater search, aviation, explosive device disposal, and computer crime. I could not put more emphasis on the fact that their functions are both preventive and detective. 

These units are specialised primarily because they deal with peculiar and often violent situations which are beyond the capability of a patrol officer response. Plainly speaking, the complexity of our liquor legislation, for example, or the ubiquity of the illegal drug trade across the province cannot be dealt with by a police service whose reach is restricted within traditional police station boundaries. 

Honourable Speaker, if there ever was a case for specialised police units, it would be KwaZulu Natal and South Africa given our consistently high crime levels and violence that underlies them. Regardless of the routine ministerial wordplays to the contrary, crime continues to be a major problem in this province and the country. South Africa stubbornly ranks very high for assault, murder, and rape. Total crime per capita is equally and persistently high. 

On the whole, crime has had a pronounced effect on society: South Africans abandon the central business districts of some cities for the relative security of suburbs; emigrants from South Africa frequently state that crime was a big motivator for them to leave; crime continues to plague our farming communities. 

As crime interferes with the lives of our communities, we have all the more reason to heed international best practice in combating it. Another powerful observation and subsequently a recommendation made during the international study tour concerns the Safer Schools Partnership programme with its provision for a close co-operation between the police service personnel and educators. 

It is clear that the problem cannot be appropriately addressed without the full participation of school management and the application of professional expertise provided by the formal police servicemen. 

The international best practice in question here dictates that the aim of school discipline is, ostensibly, to create a safe and happy learning environment in the classroom. In a classroom where a teacher is unable to maintain order and discipline, students may become unmotivated and distressed, and the climate for learning is diminished, leading to under-achievement. All these problems are painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the challenges of South Africa’s education system. 

One last concept that grabbed the attention of the portfolio committee on its international tour was that of Community Safety Officers. These figures have entered the community scene as a result of the belief that keeping communities safe involves more than just preventing crime and disorder; community must also promote internal progress and provide for social and economic change. In other words, if we are to make our communities safer, we must all work together. 

In practice, Community Safety Officers may lack the full competences of the formal police service personnel but, more importantly for their specific designation, they carry the innate authority as members of the community. As such, they are well equipped to target the anti-social behaviour of fellow individuals within that community. Not only does this approach relate closely to our own community-centred philosophy, but it also constitutes international best practice. Let us then embrace it as such. 

I thank you. 

Contact: Dr Lionel Mtshali, 083 256 4902