Planning for crime prevention: The case of the city of Tshwane

Chapter 3

Role players and responsibilities in the local crime prevention arena

In trying to come to an understanding of the crime prevention initiatives and activities in the City of Tshwane, the roles of the key role players in city-based crime prevention, local formal and informal partnerships, and the role players' mandates and areas of jurisdiction are mapped in the following section.

Key Role Players In City-Based Crime Prevention

On 14 November 2001 the Executive Mayor of the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality hosted a Tshwane Crime Prevention Summit at which various role players discussed the ways in which crime prevention could and should be approached in the City.¹ This summit seems to have been the catalyst for the municipality to commit itself to taking the centre stage in the local crime prevention arena by identifying crime prevention as a primary task of the newly established Metropolitan Police Department.
1. The Metropolitan Police Department
  
  Even though the Metropolitan Police Department has only been in operation for just over a year, it has taken several major strides in establishing itself as one of the lead agents in crime prevention in the city. Feedback from the SAPS, the various local CPFs and the city-wide Crime Prevention Forum has been very positive,² and it seems that the image and mandate of the Metropolitan Police as a key role player in crime prevention is firmly established, not only amongst the members of the department, but also in the eyes of the public. The inclusion of a crime prevention unit in City of Tshwane Metropolitan Police illustrates the importance that has been given to this function. Notwithstanding the prominence that has been given to this function the service/department is not operating at full capacity and also subjected to the general local government transformation processes.³ In terms of composition the Crime Prevention Unit is divided into three sections, each with its own tasks and specific directorates.⁴ These units are the:
  - Proactive Policing section, with the following directorates: Crime Prevention, Regional Policing, By-Laws; and Road policing
  - Reactive Policing section, with the following directorates: Research and Development, Investigations, Communication, Protection Services, and Land-invasion
  - Administration and Logistic Support.
2. The South African Police Service
  
  It is evident that the SAPS' mandate enables them to play the leading role in crime prevention activities and operations that are related to policing. In this endeavour they are supported by the Metropolitan Police in the form of resources and specific activities. In terms of its mandate and its location within the developmental local government context, the Metropolitan Police can, however, go much further and take the lead in terms of social crime prevention and environmental design. Notwithstanding this, the introduction of the Metropolitan Police Force has in no way detracted from the SAPS' responsibility for Crime Prevention in Tshwane. As equal partners in addressing crime prevention, the Metropolitan Police plays a major role in supporting and strengthening ⁵ the SAPS' mandate for Crime Prevention. Both parties operate within the broader ambit of the South African Police Act and aim to effectuate the NCPS. The SAPS not only provides a policy framework on national and regional level, but is also actively involved in crime prevention in the City of Tshwane in various ways, such as:
  - the co-ordination of crime prevention operations within the city, as well as with other areas (ie the City of Johannesburg) and within the Gauteng Province through the Area Superintendent for Crime Prevention
  - the implementation of national and provincial crime prevention programmes, such as Captain-Crime Stop⁶
  - social crime prevention programmes and activities at local police stations and CPFs.
  As the SAPS has been regarded as the primary agent for crime prevention in the city in the past, the two years since the establishment of the Tshwane Metropolitan Police were marked by a number of negotiations regarding the sharing of responsibilities and resources, joint activities and the resulting organisational transformation. This obviously made it necessary to clarify and renegotiate the roles and responsibilities of the various role players in crime prevention in Tshwane - a process characterised by varying degrees of complexity, sensitivity and uncertainty.
  
  In this regard the biggest successes, according to both the Metropolitan Police and SAPS, were not so much in the structures that were set up to facilitate the co-operation, but the willingness and commitment of various individuals to see the benefit in joining forces in terms of planning and implementation.⁷ Another aspect which seemed to assist in the establishment of positive relations with members of the SAPS and other role players in the crime prevention arena is the fact that the current Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force is a well-respected former member of the SAPS.⁸ As for the 'difficulties and confusion, these are caused by the way in which the eight Regions of the Metropolitan Police have been demarcated, without consideration for the location of the area's police stations or their operations.⁹
3. Other role players
  
  The history of crime prevention in Tshwane strongly indicates the importance of the involvement of and a joint effort between various role players, including the Tshwane Crime Prevention Forum, CPFs, Rate Payers Associations, City Improvement Districts (CIDs), Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), Business Against Crime, the South African National Defence Force, commandos and private security firms (ADT, Coin, etc.). Other organisations that contribute to crime prevention through the raising of awareness, research and education are Business Against Crime (BAC), German Technical Co-operation (GTZ), the CSIR, especially in terms of research and guidelines on environmental design for safety, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) through the work of their Crime Prevention Unit, inter alia on partnerships in crime prevention and NGOs, such as SaferAfrica and IDASA.
Local formal/informal partnerships for Crime Prevention

The City of Tshwane Crime Prevention Forum is regarded by all role players as the coordinating body for holistic crime prevention in the city. This forum replaced a dissolved Section 21-Company that was established by the former Greater Pretoria Metropolitan Council to deal with crime prevention. The forum currently consists of more than 100 of the major role players in crime prevention ¹⁰ in the city and is logistically supported by the Crime Prevention Unit of the City of Tshwane's Metropolitan Police Department. The forum provides an arena" where everybody can play a role" ¹¹ and a platform for the Metropolitan Police Department, other departments in the municipality, business, local community organisations, NGOs and research institutions, as well as other partners with a mandate for crime prevention such as Planning for crime prevention: the case of the City of Tshwane the SAPS and the SANDF to share information, discuss initiatives, co-ordinate activities and contribute towards "making Tshwane a safer place" .¹² Other formal partnerships in the Tshwane area are the Area Co-ordinating Committees and the Joint Operational Committees. These are spearheaded by the SAPS to co-ordinate planning, joint operations and other initiatives between the SAPS and its' respective units, the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Police Department, the SANDF (including the South African Air Force) and Metropolitan Emergency Services.

At neighbourhood level the CPFs, which started off as an initiative between the SAPS and the various local communities, and which include representatives from the respective Regional Offices of the Metropolitan Police Department, also play a key role in crime prevention and in initiatives to share resources in this regard.¹³In the Inner City, Sunnyside and Brooklyn these forums are for example supported by Business Against Crime and have established Section 21- Companies for the installation of CCTV camera systems. In other neighbourhoods such as Arcadia, the CID and Community Police Forum work closely together and regularly request joint operations from the Metropolitan Police and SAPS, while in Centurion the community established a Section 21-Security Company to ensure the financing of cars to enhance the capacity of local SAPS units.

The Metropolitan Police Department is trying to establish a "network of safety"¹⁴across the city by creating awareness and sensitising neighbourhood patrols, security companies, protection services, car security guards and commandos, supported by the eight Metropolitan Police Regional Offices that are in the process of establishment. This would promote crime prevention, create working relations and enable the sharing of information with the Metropolitan Police Department.
Jurisdiction and Mandates for Crime Prevention

Whereas the SAPS have jurisdiction throughout South Africa, they are operationally directed to certain policing areas, such as within the Tshwane Metropolitan Area, while the Tshwane Metropolitan Police is limited to the City of Tshwane's borders. This obviously poses some challenges for co-ordination, joint activities, structures, relationships, decision-making and resource allocation. In Table (i) a crude indication of mandates and activities and areas of jurisdiction are set out for the main agents.

Table 1: Agent, area and mandate

Activity and legal mandate

Agent and area of jurisdiction Development of policy and legislative framework

Setting crime prevention priorities

Development and implementation of crime prevention programmes

Planning and implementation of crime prevention operations SAPS National and Provincial Operations

Even though the Metropolitan Police's area of jurisdiction is the City of Tshwane, officials in the Department recognise the importance of dealing with the causes and consequences of crime across borders and acknowledge that crime prevention in the City of Tshwane could for example merely result in the displacement of crime to surrounding areas.¹⁵ To address this, good working relations with the SAPS in the Gauteng and North West provinces, as well as with the Metropolitan Police in the City of Johannesburg, are regarded as critical and are actively pursued.

Despite all the positive developments, as crime prevention is a cross-cutting issue that is regarded as the responsibility of the Crime Prevention Unit within the municipality, there is the danger of duplicating existing municipal functions in an attempt to integrate all functions from a specific sectoral function, while other role players in the municipality such as town planners, urban designers and engineers are in most cases not even aware of the existence of the unit.¹⁶ In this regard it once again seems as if the municipality sees its role as a service provider rather than that of a co-ordinator. Illustrative of this is the fact that the Crime Prevention Unit and Forum as lead agents in crime prevention struggled to get an interdepartmental forum within the municipality off the ground. In the end they resorted to engage with other departments and functions on specific aspects, areas or activities by inviting them to join discussions in the Crime Prevention Forum on such issues, which fortunately in most cases resulted in the specific section's participation in and commitment to crime prevention through the Crime Prevention Forum.¹⁷

Foot Notes

Interview: Malope M. Metropolitan Municipality of the City of Tshwane, Metropolitan Police Department, Communications Office. 22 November 2002, Pretoria. Interview: Ahomed K, Burkenstock I. Metropolitan Municipality of the City of Tshwane, Metropolitan Police Department, Crime Prevention Unit (Strategy Development and Social Crime Prevention). 21 November 2002, Pretoria.
Interview: Van Deventer S. Metropolitan Municipality of the City of Tshwane, Metropolitan Police Department, Commander of the Regional Offices (Pro-Active Policing). 12 December 2002, Pretoria. Interview: Ahomed K, Burkenstock I; Interview: Van Rhyn JJ. SAPS (Tshwane Area Superintendent for Crime Prevention Operations, and Chairperson of the Tshwane Joint Operations Committee). 17 March 2003. Pretoria.
Van Deventer; Ahomed, Burkenstock.
Van Deventer.
Van Rhyn (SAPS Area Commissioner for Operations, 2003).
Part of social crime prevention by the National Department, an educational programme promoting awareness and the image of the police at schools. Chapter 3 15
Van Rhyn; Van Deventer.
Ibid.
Van Rhyn.
Ahomed, Burkenstock.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Van Deventer.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Interview: Ahomed K, Burkenstock I. Interview: Barbir J. Metropolitan Municipality of the City of Tshwane, City Planning (former head of Urban Design). 21 November 2002, Pretoria. Interview: Coetzee J, Erasmus M. Metropolitan Municipality of the City of Tshwane. City Planning. 6 December 2002.
Ahomed, Burkenstock.

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