Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation

Metro Government Safety and Security Arrangements in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality

by
Ingrid Palmary

Research report written for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, January 2002.

Ingrid Palmary is a former Researcher in the City Safety Project at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

1. Introduction: Background to the 'New' Metro

This report is part of a series of reports which document the role of local government in crime reduction in the six metropolitan cities in South Africa.1 This report gives a preliminary overview of the municipality's safety and security arrangements, and future crime reduction plans, in the Nelson Mandela Metro in the Eastern Cape Province. In particular, this report will consider the local government's progress on the development of social crime prevention and by-law enforcement initiatives, given that these are the two primary tasks of local government in relation to local-level crime reduction.2

With the local government elections in late 2000, two new metropolitan regions were created in South Africa, bringing the number of "category A" municipalities3 to six. The new metros were Ekhurhuleni (the former East Rand region in Gauteng) and Nelson Mandela (an amalgamation of the former Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Despatch areas in the Eastern Cape). This report details the developments in the safety and security sector in the Nelson Mandela Metro. The Nelson Mandela Metro (NMM) is made up of three former municipalities: Uitenhage, Despatch and Port Elizabeth. These municipalities have traditionally been poorly–resourced, with the bulk of the resources being concentrated in the Port Elizabeth area (- largely due to the prevalence of large industry in the Port Elizabeth area). The new municipal boundary stretches to Coega in the north and Rocklands in the west, making Nelson Mandela the fifth largest metro in the country in terms of geographical area.

The Nelson Mandela metropolitan region has a population of approximately one million people.4 One of the most striking characteristics of this region is the diversity of its population in terms of poverty, education, access to municipal services and urban/rural lifestyles. The process of redefining the municipal boundaries (which resulted in the creation of this Metro) was, in part, driven by central government policy to address precisely these problems of inequality and marginalisation, as well as to ensure the cross-subsidisation of wealthy and poor areas. The White Paper on Local Government states that "local government is uniquely placed to analyse and understand power dynamics within a community, and to ensure that those who tend to be excluded and marginalised can become active and equal participants in community processes and in the transformation of the settlements where they live".5 This is particularly the case in urban environments, which face the "challenges of integrating towns and townships. Integration must ensure affordable mobility between work, home and recreation; combat crime, pollution and congestion; and structure the built environment to facilitate the participation of disadvantaged groups in the social and economic life of the city [own emphasis]."

Clearly, this is a mandate that gives some direction to the approach to crime prevention which local government is required to implement – implying that crime prevention should contribute to the upliftment of the urban poor and also to the economic regeneration of South African urban centres. This is no easy task in the NMM, as poor residents often live in rural and informal areas of the metro, with economic activity concentrated elsewhere in the central urban areas. This means that there is competition for scarce resources between the areas that bring income to the city, and the areas that are historically under-serviced.

The Nelson Mandela metropolitan area faces a number of social and developmental challenges,6 each of which have a bearing on the crime reduction strategies that the local government may choose to implement. For example, in the entire region, approximately 20% of the population is unemployed. Over one third (between 30% and 40%) of the population is under 15 years old, and this extremely youthful population will require crime prevention projects sensitive to their needs. In addition, of the economically active population, 36% earn less than R18 000 per year – evidence of high levels of urban poverty. The level of illiteracy among people over 15 years is 7.4%. This too presents challenges for the way in which the municipality engages local communities in crime reduction programmes.

2. Major crime problems in the metropolitan area

Crime statistics are extremely difficult to assess for metropolitan regions, primarily because the SAPS boundaries (according to which crime statistics are collected) do not coincide with municipal boundaries. This is compounded by the fact that the classification of crime by the SAPS tends not to capture the kind of issues that local government does deal with (for example, violations of by-laws, such as street trading by-laws, are not recorded in SAPS crime recording systems). Finally, we know that a reliance on reported crime data will always be characterised by the under-reporting of interpersonal crimes, particularly those of a sensitive nature, such as rape or domestic violence.

The problem of incompatible SAPS and metro boundaries can be addressed (albeit unsatisfactorily) through studying reported crime trends in only those SAPS stations that fall within the municipal boundary and analysing the crimes reported only to those stations. This is currently the most accurate way of analysing reported crime for a municipal area, although there are some SAPS stations whose boundaries fall only partly within the metropolitan boundary, which means that all their crime data should not be counted towards crime data for the metropolitan area. In spite of these limitations, our analysis of reported crime in the Nelson Mandela Metro area may be useful in guiding the crime prevention planning at local government level. The following graph shows the reported crimes for the period January to December 2000 at all the police stations within the NMM area. Statistics from seventeen SAPS police station areas were included in this analysis.7

This graph shows that the most common reported crimes in the NMM are assaults - both 'common' and serious. Clearly, interpersonal violence is a major problem in the Nelson Mandela area. All forms of theft, robbery and burglary are also very common in the area.

As mentioned previously, however, the Nelson Mandela Metro (NMM) area is extremely diverse. For example, it is likely that business burglaries and truckjackings are concentrated within the industrial areas; and assault is concentrated in residential areas. In order for the metropolitan council to properly plan their crime reduction efforts, crime information needs to be disaggregated. Indeed, accessing useful crime information is a major problem for the municipality; although equipment and expertise for this kind of analysis does exist in some parts of the metro.

It is interesting to note that the NMM has the highest number of serious and common assault of all the metros in the country.8 In addition, the levels of rape (of both minors and adults) reported in 2000, were almost as high as those of Johannesburg, meaning that the number of rapes relative to the population size is, in fact, far higher than in Johannesburg (as Johannesburg's population is far larger).

The causes of interpersonal, and more specifically gender-related, crimes are difficult to determine. The fact that the most common crimes reported in the NMM area were not acquisitive (property crimes) is significant, as policy makers all-too-often link property crime to poverty in an overly simplistic manner. In spite of the high levels of poverty, many of the people interviewed in the NMM felt that the causes of crime in the region were social – meaning that they stemmed from inequality, marginalisation and poor living conditions – rather than simply economic (relating only to poverty).

3. Methodology

The information in this report was obtained primarily through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with key informants. These key informants included members of the NMMM local government departments involved in crime reduction, members of the SAPS in the area and NGO's.

The information primarily reflects the views and opinions of these key informants on a range of issues including their role in crime reduction, the successes and failures that have been experienced in the metro and how crime should be tackled in the metro.

Other sources of information include local government documents such as the housing policy or Integrated Development Plan, SAPS statistics and relevant NGO documentation.

4. The Organisation of Safety and Security functions in the Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality

Several departments within the Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality contribute to the city's safety and security capacity. In the new municipal structure, which is currently being implemented, the Safety and Security 'business unit' will be made up of:

Of particular interest to this report are the security division, the traffic department and, to a lesser degree, the disaster management department.

The various departments that comprise the safety and security component are in the process of being restructured. However, each of the departments mentioned above will remain within the Safety and Security business unit. Although some of their functions may change with restructuring (particularly the functions of security and traffic with the possible establishment of municipal policing), their functions as they currently stand are as follows:

4.1 The security division

The security division of the former Port Elizabeth municipality was established in 1982. Its functions are varied, although it focuses on investigating and preventing thefts from within the council, and on guarding of council property. Increasingly, it has become more economical to use private security for the guarding function, and the security division has become more focussed on preventing internal theft. At the end of 2001, there were about 108 employees within the security division.

In recent years, the security personnel have engaged in some by-law and law enforcement, particularly enforcing loitering and 'possession of stolen property' legislation. This is, however, largely incidental, rather than being based on a strategic decision to move into this area of work.

Currently there is discussion about the formation of a metropolitan police service which would most likely result in the security department merging with the traffic department to form this new police department. More will be said in relation to this, later in the report.

4.2 Disaster management

The Municipality's Disaster Management team consisted of 5 staff members at the end of 2001. This is likely to increase if the Disaster Management Bill is passed by Parliament. The new Act would require the metro to establish a disaster management centre, which would necessitate increased resources for disaster management.

The primary function of disaster management is to develop plans for the management of disasters, should they occur. These may include building evacuation plans or the control of large public gatherings. In addition, this team engages in community education about how to prevent disasters, such as how to safely handle fire. They are a coordinating department, rather than one that directly attends to emergencies. In the case of disasters, they would coordinate the response of the traffic, fire and other departments.

The Nelson Mandela municipality is currently in the process of developing a centralised communication centre for both the fire and disaster management components, in order to save costs. This communication centre will have potential uses in respect of crime reduction as there will be coordinated responses to disasters resulting in less duplication.

4.3 The traffic department

Previously in the Nelson Mandela metro area, there were three traffic departments - Despatch, Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage - with the Port Elizabeth department being the largest. Since the formation of the metro municipality, these traffic departments have been merged, although they still have three separate operating centres. By June 2002, a central operating unit will have been developed.

There are currently about 88 traffic officers from the former Port Elizabeth municipality, 22 from the Uitenhage traffic department, and 4 from the Despatch traffic division. If an equitable and efficient service is to be provided throughout the metro, this number will need to increase dramatically, and the re-allocation of personnel across the metro area will need to be considered.

4.4 The fire department

The fire department plays a central role in the provision of safety in the metro, in collaboration with the disaster management department. Through the enforcement of fire by-laws, the fire department could have an even greater impact on crime levels in the metro. For example, fire by-laws could be used to close buildings where illegal activities are thought to be taking place, if the owners of the buildings are also violating the fire by-laws. Given that the focus of this report is on crime prevention, the activities of the fire department will not be elaborated on in more detail here.

5. Planning for Crime Reduction: The Integrated Development Planning (IDP) Process

As mentioned earlier, the 1998 White Paper on local government aimed to guide the new local government system with the primary objectives of sustainable development and improvement of the quality of life. With regard to metropolitan government, the White Paper emphasised the need for social justice, the integration of divided communities, and the promotion of equity in the following respects:

It has already been mentioned that one of the primary challenges that the White Paper identifies for local government (particularly category A municipalities) is the upliftment of the urban poor. In the Nelson Mandela Metro, this would also need to be read to include some aspects of rural (or peri-urban) poverty, as the metro has mix of urban and rural regions, each of which have their own unique safety priorities and needs.

A central requirement of the White Paper was that municipalities should develop an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for their region. The IDP should be a vision of a desirable quality of life for all communities, and should contain concrete plans and budgets for realising this vision. It should also enable coordination between the activities of local government and those of other levels of government, including activities related to public safety. An IDP is defined as an 'operational plan' for the municipality.

The development of the current IDP for the Nelson Mandela Metro began in October 2001 and is expected to be completed by March 2002. The development of the IDP takes place in a number of stages. The first stage, which is an analysis of the situation in the metro, is currently under way, and it involves:

This stage is vital to the development of crime reduction plans appropriate to different parts of the Metro – as mentioned earlier, there are many diverse (and sometimes competing) safety needs within the metro. In terms of crime prevention, the strategy developed would need to account for the variations in rural/urban lifestyle, unemployment levels, literacy levels and quality of life that are experienced in different parts of the city.

The second stage of the IDP development, which has also begun, is the development of strategies. The requirements of this stage are to:

In the final stage, municipal development projects will be planned and implemented. It is clear that these early stages of IDP development are crucial, if a clear understanding of the needs and priorities of the communities in the metro is to inform crime reduction projects. Development projects also need to be cost effective and lead to the desired reduction in crime, and consideration of the crime prevention impact is anew factor for planners to consider.

Some initial work has been done on the safety and security component of the IDP for the NMM. The safety and security objectives already identified are:

From these objectives, the developmental strategies that have been identified are:

The strategies identified include a combination of social crime prevention and law enforcement approaches, that fits well with the principles identified in the 1998 White Paper on Safety and Security.

6. The Presidential Urban Renewal Project at Motherwell

In his State of the Nation Address in 2001, the State President identified a number of key urban renewal sites to become 'Presidential Priorities'. One such site – Motherwell – falls within the NMM. National government is primarily responsible for funding the urban renewal projects, with local government implementing projects on-site. The key priorities at the Motherwell urban renewal site are:

The urban renewal project began with an audit of the area, and potential interventions were developed on the basis of this audit. These will include:

Motherwell is one of the biggest urban renewal projects in the country, with over R300 million being set aside for it. The project is based on a ten-year plan, with five-year objectives. The key indicators for the first five years are:

Clearly these are difficult concepts to measure accurately, and in the very near future, quantitative goals will have to be set and baseline information gathered, in order to accurately measure the success of the project.

The project will be managed by a section 21 company and will have a dedicated staff capacity. One of the key problems facing those in the urban renewal project is that aspects driven by council face a great deal of 'red tape'. It is hoped that a section 21 company will not only reduce this 'red tape' but will also allow for other funds, such as those from donors, to be put into the project.

Other key challenges include the lack of capacity to monitor and evaluate the 'social' aspects of the project which are often more complex than the more physical aspects of the projects such as the provision of infrastructure. Some effort has been made to address this lack of capacity – for example an agreement has been reached by the Land Bank that they will monitor and evaluate the urban agriculture aspect of the project. A similar agreement has been reached in respect of tourism development.

In addition, within an area such as Motherwell, there are likely to be implications arising from the project for surrounding areas. There was some concern expressed from within council that displacement of crime and urban decay could occur (to surrounding areas) and that service delivery could be unequal as there are many under-serviced areas in the metro and the urban renewal project does not cover all of these areas. The project will therefore be piloted for three years and then rolled out to other areas.

Finally, the diverse range of projects being implemented in Motherwell – although appropriate to the diverse problems facing the area – makes coordination of projects extremely difficult. There has been some tension as to who should lead the project. It is felt that if a department such as the City Engineers leads it, infrastructure projects are likely to be favoured. At the time of writing, a coordinating team seems to be the most appropriate solution to this problem.

7. By-law Enforcement and Municipal Policing

7.1 The current state of by-law enforcement

Although the proposed municipal police in the NMM will have a primary responsibility for crime prevention in the metro, other agencies are currently also responsible for enforcing by-laws within the metro. Several departments have been actively enforcing by-laws:

Although these departments have been enforcing by-laws for a long time and are relatively experienced at it, several problems have been identified with the current state of by-law enforcement:

Attempts to address problems with the current state of by-law enforcement in NMM, as in many other cities, have been linked to decisions that are being made about the establishment and functioning of the municipal police service. For NMM, municipal policing has been identified as one way of ensuring effective collaboration between the different by-law enforcement agencies in the city. It is, however, a decision that has a number of pro's and con's as discussed below.

7.2 Developments towards municipal policing in Nelson Mandela Metro

On the 6th of November 1998, a 'crime-free summit' was held in the former Port Elizabeth municipality, which was attended by a range of stake-holders from civil society, local and provincial government, the criminal justice system, the SAPS and business. At this summit, the idea of establishing a municipal police service was unanimously supported. Following the summit, a task team was established to do a feasibility study into the establishment of the municipal police and concluded that its establishment would be supported in principle. On the 2nd March 1999, the executive committee stated that they agreed with this decision, on condition that adequate funding for the metropolitan police was secured. The Administrative and Finance Committee of that council then recommended to the Executive Committee of the former Port Elizabeth council that R7.1 million be set aside for the establishment of municipal policing. On the 27 May 1999 this amount was set aside by the Executive Committee.

However, in November 1999, the (then) Engineering and Safety Committee was informed that the establishment of metropolitan police would be put on hold until after the establishment of the Metro, and the funds that had been set aside for metropolitan policing were redirected.

The issue of municipal policing in the Nelson Mandela Metro was revived in February 2001 and the director of traffic and licensing services was requested to develop a discussion document and business plan regarding the establishment of metro policing. This was followed by a workshop in May 2001 of all safety and security services within the municipality, where the municipal policing business plan and application (among other issues) were discussed.

The proposed mission for the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Police Service (NMMPS) is:

to protect the lives and property of the residents of and visitors to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan area, to preserve peace, and to prevent crime and disorder while constantly guarding personal liberties as prescribed by law and in the constitution. The NMM Police Service will also ensure public observance of the areas' by-laws and will foster good relations and cooperation between all relevant roleplayers and the community of Nelson Mandela to generate a culture of obedience to the law and respect for human rights.

This mission is not, however, finalised and some alterations to it have already been proposed. Experience from other cities has shown that a simple and easy-to-understand mission statement is most appropriate and the above mission may need to be revised in light of this.

Very little detail is given in the business plan about how the three areas of work that the municipal police are responsible for (crime prevention, by-law enforcement and traffic enforcement) will be dealt with. Although this is to be expected at this early stage of the planning process, the area most detailed is that of crime prevention. It is clear that crime prevention is conceptualised by the NMM as high visibility police patrols and response to reports of crime and to public complaints,9 and no attention has yet been paid to social crime prevention. It is essential, however, in planning for crime prevention, particularly in the IDP process, that social crime prevention is incorporated into the work of other municipal structures as well as in the proposed Metro Police Department, and that crime prevention is not seen as the sole responsibility of the municipal police department.

According to the business plan, the majority of the proposed staff capacity of the planned NMM police service will be from the former Port Elizabeth region (109 of the 135 existing officers are from the Port Elizabeth traffic department). There are 48 other staff members who could, with some training, be incorporated into the Municipal police fairly soon after its establishment – also from the former Port Elizabeth region. It is clear that this is a very small number of police officers, given that their primary crime prevention function will be visible patrol work. The business plan aims to increase this number by 50 officers per year, to have a total of 480 officers by 2005.

It is expected that the municipal police service will cost R89,600,408 to operate in its first year. The combined budget provision from all the relevant traffic departments for the same year is R30,733,487. This means that an additional source of funding will be required in order for municipal policing in the NMM to actually materialise. These and other challenges facing municipal policing in the city will be discussed below.

Given that the IDP process is still in its investigative stages, it is somewhat surprising that the move to municipal policing has been decided upon already. In theory, a range of crime prevention options should be investigated and costed, and the selection and implementation of strategies should be based on this costing, as well as the results of the environmental scan, (and other research like a Victim Survey) which should identify the causes and possible solutions to crime in different parts of the metro.

Indeed, many of the officials interviewed during the research for this report were not able to articulate the rationale for the new municipal police service. Some were even sceptical about the potential of the proposed municipal police to impact on crime and safety. This was particularly mentioned in light of the obvious social causes of crime in the area. In spite of this, the local government officials interviewed for this report felt that all cities in South Africa – including Nelson Mandela - were under political pressure from other levels of government to develop municipal police services.

One of the more problematic motivations given by the respondents interviewed for this research for the establishment of municipal police is that SAPS are seen to be 'failing', and hence should be replaced or supplemented by the municipal police service. Although this following respondent is sympathetic to the high workloads of the SAPS, he feels that they are unable to cope with the current crime situation:

No disrespect to the South African Police, [but] their level of efficacy is definitely declining. And I don't want to sound as if I'm pointing fingers, but this is an established fact.

If this scenario is true, it is unlikely that there will be good interagency collaboration between the new municipal police service and the SAPS. The municipal police will rely on the SAPS for the investigation and prosecution of cases, as these are not functions of the municipal services. A failure on the part of SAPS to adequately perform its investigative function will bring disrepute to the municipal police, and raise questions about its effectiveness. In a recent workshop on by-law enforcement in the NMM, it was questioned whether it would not be more appropriate for local government to give resources to boost the capacity of the SAPS, rather than spend those resources to create an entirely new service. This option does not appear to have been thoroughly considered, perhaps because of the political pressure from national government referred to above.

The process of developing a municipal police force appears recently to have slowed down, and it is no longer clear whether or when such a force will be established in the NMMM area.

Many of those interviewed for this report felt that metro policing would be an effective way for the municipality to contribute to crime reduction in the NMM. In addition, some members of council see the establishment of municipal policing as an opportunity to revise systems that are not working well, and to ensure that traffic and by-law enforcement operations are well coordinated and do not duplicate one another. Some officials see the integration into municipal policing as a career opportunity that would allow them to receive better salaries and open new career opportunities. As one interviewee stated:

I think there'd be greater scope, not only for advancement because the larger the organisation the better the chances of advancement, but also as far as jobs are concerned.

It was noted by some interviewees that within the existing council departments there is a great deal of experience that could contribute to effective crime reduction in the region, within or outside a Metro Police agency.

7.3 Challenges for the establishment of a Metropolitan Police Service
7.3.1 Cost and equitable police service provision across the metro area

One of the primary concerns expressed by interviewees during this research was that municipal policing is an expensive option for improving safety in the NMM, and the municipality has very limited resources. Within the current budget of the metro, it would not be possible to fund an effective police service and additional sources of funding would be required. A number of possibilities are currently being investigated, such as a ring-fenced fund for the service, an additional fuel tax in the municipal area, or rates increases for particular sectors of the community, such as business. Although these being considered as options at this stage, there is concern within the municipality that the provision of social services (including housing delivery or the delivery of other local services) should not be (financially) disadvantaged by the creation of the municipal police.

Given the draft business plan's focus on traffic policing and crime prevention through visible patrols, municipal policing as envisaged in NMM to date is likely to be best-suited to central city areas and tourist routes. This means that crime reduction programmes suitable to other parts of the metro, such as the more rural sectors, will be needed, anyway, in addition to a municipal police service, thus increasing the overall resource requirement. If the metro is to meet the objectives laid out in the White Paper on local government of 'equitable service delivery and upliftment of the urban poor, then funds for municipal policing will have to be found, in addition to the existing budgets, with which the council is already struggling to meet the needs of the poorer and more rural people in the NMM. As one interviewee noted:

The targeted places [for Metro Police], I think, will be the beachfronts and the CBD. But also not neglecting the township. So it's not a question that we're going to dedicate our manpower in one particular area. We're going to cover the whole area, but I think we have to prioritise and the indication is that for us to be able to attract tourists, we will have to make our beaches a safe place, and also the [other] tourist places.

With the creation of the metropolitan municipality it was obvious that Uitenhage and Despatch had few material resources to contribute towards a new Police Department, and the resources of the city of Port Elizabeth might simply be stretched to cover those areas. According to the business plan, to provide even the current level of service (although inadequate) on a 24-hour basis, an additional 50 uniformed staff would be needed in the proposed metro police. As one informant said:

If we go the route of converting the existing [traffic and security] staff10 [to become the Metro Police], we will need not less than – and this is just to kick off – at least 50 additional staff. I'll tell you why. At this point in time, we are not working 24-hours … . We only work until 1 o'clock in the morning from Monday to Friday. And in the municipal police we're supposed to render a 24 hour service.
7.3.2 Public Expectations

One of the primary challenges facing any new municipal police service is to manage expectations, and to ensure a realistic picture of its activities and expected impact. Many people outside the council are extremely optimistic about municipal policing. As one council official described:

Every time you attend a CPF meeting or a rate payers association meeting … they ask the same question. Every time you get in the meeting, they ask you when are you establishing the municipal police service. People are interested to see this thing take off. So that's why [it's being established].

However, some officials expressed doubt as to whether, given the severe levels of poverty and unemployment in the metropolitan area, metropolitan policing would really contribute to a decrease in crime. Public (and indeed council) pressure for municipal policing has made it difficult to raise such doubts. As noted already, the public pressure for municipal policing also means that the initiative has developed outside of a broader strategic plan (the IDP) for the council, which should inform crime reduction more holistically.

In light of the high public expectations, it is vital that information about the activities of the MP would be communicated clearly and frequently, so that there would not be a loss of public confidence in the metro government.

A group with particular expectations about the establishment of metro policing in NMM are ex-combatants, particularly those aligned to the ANC (former MK soldiers). Although metro policing is seen as a source of jobs (which is primarily how its being discussed among former combatants) many former combatants will not meet the basic requirements for inclusion in the service (including a matric certificate). Council will have to make some tough political decisions about whether they will accommodate non-qualifying ex- combatants in the proposed Metro Police Service.

7.3.3 Expectations among council officials

Internal expectations need to be managed very carefully if it is decided to go ahead with creating a Metro Police Service, and a clear and consistent flow of information about the process of creating a metro police department will need to take place from decision makers in the council to the officials on the ground. Even if this is adequately done, there is likely to be some resistance to the establishment of such a department. Experience from other South African cities has shown that those within the security and traffic departments will probably be most concerned about the changes that metropolitan policing could bring. However, for the security guards, transformation to municipal police may result in increased salary, new training and a better career path. In spite of this, one interviewee noted:

How are staff going to take the amalgamation? I mean, my personal feeling is that they're waiting to see what happens. And depending on who steps in as Chair [will determine] which way they go. There's no guarantee of their total cooperation. I don't think they're too far from striking.

We will also get (from the security department) people who will say, no I'm happy being a security officer, I don't want to be municipal police officer. As well as traffic officers who will say, no I'm happy as a traffic officer. I don't want to be municipal police. If you look at the old municipal police, what they were doing, [it] had a stigma. The terminology had a stigma. So people don't want to be associated [with it].

The reservations that current council staff members have about the possible transformation to municipal police relate to three key issues:

7.3.4 Logistical challenges in creating a metropolitan police department

The creation of a new police organisation will involve addressing various logistical and system challenges. These include designing the rank system to accommodate the previous ranks of traffic and security personnel, the development of channels of reporting cases to the SAPS, and designing an organogram for the proposed metropolitan police service.

In addition, the design of the municipal police regional boundaries needs considerable care, as the regional (sub-metro-level) arrangements will need to make sense within the context of other demarcations within the municipality, the crime distribution within the metro area, and the existing SAPS boundaries (which will help facilitate an efficient working relationship between the SAPS and the municipal police).

In addition, the training of members is likely to be a significant challenge, as it has been in other cities. Not only does the 'basic conversion course' need to adequately equip former traffic and security officer to perform wider policing functions, but it needs to be done before the launch of the service.

7.3.5 Competing political priorities for the council

One of the primary concerns that some Councillors have expressed about the proposed development of municipal policing is that it may divert scarce municipal resources away from social development. As mentioned earlier, the NMM has a great need for social development, given the problems of poverty, unemployment, and inequality that characterise the area.

To some extent, the fact that alternative sources of funding for the municipal police are being sought is testament to the commitment of the municipality not to reduce levels of social service provision. However, there have been concerns expressed that the additional funding required for municipal policing might also be better spent on economic upliftment. As one interviewee noted:

A lot of serious thought [is needed] as to the justification for all that money [being spent on municipal policing] and what do they actually see for it at the end of the day … until such time as people can get jobs and feed families. I mean there's a lot of people committing crime, I'm convinced [it's because] because they've got nothing else to do and they've got no money to feed themselves, or their family. What will one do?

This extract shows the importance of monitoring municipal policing in terms of its cost-effectiveness. Few South African cities have already established municipal police services, and these have not been in operation long enough to determine whether they have in fact had any impact on crime trends in those cities. Ongoing thorough evaluation of the municipal police will therefore need to be factored in to the plans of the NMM.

7.3.6 Defining crime prevention and by-law enforcement roles

Effective crime prevention is, by definition, multidisciplinary. In addition to visible patrols planned by the proposed metro police service, a comprehensive social crime prevention strategy needs to be developed, which will address issues such as family support, education, housing and job creation in the metropolitan area. The municipal police department should not be over-burdened with the responsibility for crime prevention (within the municipal structure), and it should not be assumed that the kind of crime prevention that a police service can offer will be sufficient to reduce crime in an area such as the Nelson Mandela Metro.

Both the SAPS and the Metro police department would be responsible for crime prevention, and the exact roles and responsibilities of each of these agencies will need to be defined. Role clarity is essential for effective inter-agency co-ordination, which will be required if metro policing is to contribute meaningfully to crime reduction in the metropolitan area. Although the police agencies have statutory responsibility for crime prevention, there are also a number of agencies which can contribute, and they would also need to be involved in inter-agency partnerships towards crime reduction. Working closely with CBO's and NGO's is likely to pose its own challenges for the proposed metro police agency.

In addition, the by-law enforcement function of the municipal police needs to be defined clearly. The by-laws need to be consolidated before the municipal police service begins to operate, and priority by-laws need to be identified. If this is carefully done, the enforcement of municipal by-laws could contribute to a significant decrease in levels of fear of crime and disorder in the city.

8. Social crime prevention programmes

Social crime prevention is a new activity for municipalities in South Africa, and the role of local government in social crime prevention only began to be articulated in the White Paper on Safety and Security in 1998. In spite of this, social prevention is central to the activities of many local government departments - although the crime reduction potential of their activities is not always acknowledged. The White Paper on Safety and Security defines social crime prevention as "anything that [aims to] reduce the social, economic and environmental factors conducive to particular types of crime".11

From this definition, it is clear that council departments such as housing, planning and zoning, parks and recreation as well as safety and security have a central role to play in social crime prevention. On the whole, social crime prevention has not been well conceptualised or integrated into the developmental activities of cities in South Africa. Little social crime prevention work has been done in the NMM. The IDP framework now identifies the development of a social crime prevention strategy as one of the key activities for the new department of safety and security (work on this will begin this year). However, crime reduction is not incorporated into the IDP priorities of any other departments within the metro, which is an issue of concern, given that effective social crime prevention requires an interdepartmental approach.

8.1 NGO social crime prevention

In spite of the lack of local government experience in the social crime prevention field, several NGO's in the NMM provide services which can (directly or indirectly) be defined as social crime prevention. (This is a similar situation to other cities in the country, and in all of them, local government could play a role in supporting and coordinating social crime prevention programmes run by such non-governmental organisations). However, the Nelson Mandela Metro does not have the number of non-government social crime prevention networks that other, better resourced, cities have. For this reason, it is likely that the local government will have to play a more direct role in social crime prevention in this Metro. The following NGO's play a crime reduction role in the NMM area:

8.1.1 UMAC

UMAC is an NGO based in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces. Although traditionally a conflict resolution and mediation organisation, UMAC's project in the NMM is to establish Community Safety Forums (CSF's). CSF's take their mandate from the National Crime Prevention Strategy, the White Paper on Local Government and the White Paper on Safety and Security, each of which focus on interagency collaboration but give little practical detail on how local government should implement crime reduction programmes in an integrated manner. The primary aim of the CSF's is to help the local government develop local crime prevention strategies based on the needs of a range of stakeholders.

The rationale for CSF's is that the already-existing 'Community Police Forums (or CPF's) are limited in their scope, as they focus solely on the relationship between the police and the community. CSF's try to also involve participants from local government, criminal justice agencies, community-based organisations and other local roleplayers.

There are three pilot sites for CSF's in the NMM – a rural, an semi-rural and an urban site -in order to determine the applicability of these Forums for the NMM area (they were first developed in Cape Town). The CSF project is overseen by a provincial oversight committee. The project is funded by a donor agency.

8.1.2 NICRO

NICRO is one of the largest non-profit organisations operating in the NMM. It is a national NGO, with its Eastern Cape office in Port Elizabeth. Its funding is a combination of donor and South African government funding. NICRO has four projects that it implements in the NMM:

8.1.3 Business Against Crime (BAC)

Business Against Crime is an organisation representing concerned businesses in the Eastern Cape – they are organised provincially and therefore their activities are not limited to the NMM area. Business Against Crime has two primary projects in the Eastern Cape:

In addition, a 'tourism safety forum' has been created by BAC, which includes the development of CCTV cameras along major tourist routes in the NMM. This project is chaired by 'Tourism P.E'.

8.2 Challenges facing social crime prevention in the NMM area

The above report shows that a range of social crime prevention projects are underway in the NMM, and these reflect a combination of 'situational' crime prevention projects and projects that target the causes of crime and re-offending. In the NMM, social crime prevention has been largely developed out of need and the severe lack of social services and development in the area. Many of the projects are all well conceptualised and implemented by organisations with extensive expertise in the field. In spite of this, a few challenges face the continuing development of social crime prevention in the NMM.

8.2.1 Lack of local government involvement

The municipality is likely to commission the Institute for Security Studies to develop a social crime prevention strategy for the metro. This suggests that the council is beginning to engage with its social crime prevention responsibilities. In spite of this (very recent) development, the council is not currently engaging with social crime prevention work and there will need to be a great deal of capacity development within council to effectively take on this role. It is important that the strategy that council develops takes into consideration the considerable skill that already exists in the NGO sector for social crime prevention and supplements this skill with additional training and resources where necessary.

In addition, the council may have an important coordinating role to play in the metro as few of the organisations mentioned above (with the exception of BAC and the CSF project) are engaged in extensive interagency coordination and cooperation.

8.2.2 Equitable prevention work across the municipal area

All the social crime prevention initiatives identified above, with the exception of some of the CSF's, are located in the former Port Elizabeth area. To some extent, this reflects the competing demands of different communities within the metro. For example, tourism and business development imply different safety needs to those of communities living in informal settlements. For the former, high-tech prevention approaches such as CCTV surveillance might be appropriate, whereas for the latter group, a social crime prevention approach such as improved planning of housing delivery and the strengthening of social capital might be more appropriate. Groups such as business and tourism service providers are traditionally well resourced and are able to secure their own funding. It would, however, be the role of local government to ensure that projects developed in the wealthier parts of the city are rolled out to the less-affluent communities in the metro.

In addition to supporting or co-ordinating the activities of the existing social crime prevention agencies, the local government could take on responsibility for the supplementation of safety services to under-serviced areas. Given that equitable service delivery is a key priority of local government, the extension of existing projects (whether they are government projects or not) to areas not already serviced should be considered a local government priority.

8.2.3 Monitoring and evaluation

There is a lack of monitoring and evaluation capacity for crime prevention projects in the NMM area - this is no different to other parts of the country, where few crime reduction projects are monitored or evaluated. This lack of evaluation makes it very difficult to decide what projects to roll out, as there is no clear indication of what works where.

In the early days of project development, the most important role that local government can play is to collect baseline data that can be used to determine the effectiveness of projects in the future.

9. Conclusion: Issues for the NMM to Consider

9.1 Equity and redistribution

One of the primary challenges facing the NMM – and indeed one of the primary issues that the local government is addressing - is that of inequality in service provision and the equitable redistribution of services.

In spite of this, many of the crime reduction efforts still remain concentrated in the former Port Elizabeth area, and most of the plans for improving safety and security in the metro are being made by officials from the former Port Elizabeth Council. A great deal of consultation still needs to take place with the other two regions incorporated into the NMM (Uitenhage and Despatch). If the needs of the less-developed areas are not taken into consideration, inequality between these and the more developed areas of the metro may, in fact, be exacerbated.

9.2 Information

The former Port Elizabeth municipality has a very sophisticated Geographic Information System (GIS) on which its traffic incidents are recorded and with which there are plans to capture crime data in future. The challenge facing the metro is to also include the other parts of the metro on this mapping system, and to ensure that there are the skills in other parts of the metro to update and manage this system.

In addition, a great deal more information is still needed by the local government, particularly in relation to the evaluation of crime reduction projects, if strategic decisions are to be made about what projects to implement in the metro in the future.

Finally, there is a lack of the sort of information that the emergency services department need, (such as where churches, clinics or community halls are located) if there is an emergency. Again, this is an issue of coordinating all this information within the metro as much of it exists, albeit in different parts of the administration.

9.3 Coordination of social crime prevention with by-law enforcement

Currently the social crime prevention efforts in the metro area are being run almost exclusively by non-profit organisations (with the exception of the social crime prevention components urban renewal project in Motherwell). Local government therefore has yet to define its own social crime prevention role and, in doing so, should take account of the existing social crime prevention work that is happening and where it is located. The municipality appears to be concentrating most of its efforts on law enforcement, specifically the establishment of a metro police agency. What remains to be considered by the local government is how the future policing / by-law enforcement strategy and social crime prevention strategies can be integrated and coordinated, to form a holistic crime reduction approach for the city. The development of a strong relationship between the municipality and the SAPS will also be critical to effective co-ordination.

9.4 Collaboration

Collaboration is one way of avoiding duplication of efforts in the metro, and ensuring effective use of scarce resources. This research found little knowledge within local government about which organisations were engaged in crime reduction in the metro. Those involved in social crime prevention were often unaware of other organisations working in the field. The council's future crime prevention strategy needs to identify the key role-players in law enforcement and social crime prevention, and ensure that they are all aware of their respective roles and complement each other's efforts.

Notes:

1 The other reports in the series are available online at http://www.csvr.org.za/pubslist/pubsurb.htm.

2 For a detailed definition of social crime prevention see http://www.csvr.org.za/papers/papalm2.htm.

3 The White Paper on Local Government defines a category A municipality as, "A municipality that has exclusive municipal executive and legislative authority in its area.

4 Source: http://www.gov.za

5 Department of Development Planning and Local Government, White Paper on Local Government, 1998.

6 The statistics referred to here are drawn from the government's 1996 census and thus may be slightly out-of-date

7 The SAPS station areas that fall within the NMM are: Despatch, Motherwell, Mount Road, New Brighton, Swartkops, Walmer, Algoapark, Bethelsdorp, Gelvandale, Humewood, Kabega Park, Kinkelbos, Kwadwesi, Kwazakele, Kamesh, Uitenhage, Kwanobuhle

8 The CSVR has analysed the crime patterns for each of the six metropolitan regions in the country.

9 This is the same as the interpretation of crime prevention in most other cities, although, as mentioned earlier, there are a number of other ways in which it can be interpreted. It is clear that cities across the country are opting for the more narrow definition of crime prevention. This is perhaps an appropriately modest understanding of crime prevention given that it is the kind of crime prevention that law enforcement agencies have the most experience in and are most easily able to incorporate into their existing duties.

10 To create a municipal police service

11 Department of safety and security, White Paper on Safety and Security, 1998.

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