Monograph 47: Poor Safety: Crime and Policing in South Africa`s Rural Areas
Reflections on South Africa’s membership of the ICC regime, and considers the domestic steps the country has taken in its relationship with the ICC
Some 18 million people — more than 46% of South Africa’s population — live in rural areas, and years of racial discrimination have ensured that this population is predominantly very poor, undereducated and underemployed.
While crime in rural areas is commonly thought to be less extensive than in more developed urban areas, surveys indicate that people living in rural areas are victimised at rates similar to those of their urban counterparts. While the overall chances of becoming a victim may be similar, the impact of victimisation may be more severe in rural areas. Without access to social services and other support, the rural poor are the least able to deal with the impact of crime.
The research conducted for this monograph surveyed 756 inhabitants of 40 predominantly African rural settlements in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Northern Province, North West and the Free State. Of these respondents, 56.9% were victims of at least one crime between July 1993 and July 1998.
The most common crime was stock theft, affecting 16.9% of the sample. Burglary affected 15.6% of respondents, while violent crime — including murder, sexual assault and assault — affected 13.1%.
The majority of crime victims believed that, with the exception of stock theft, crimes were committed by people living in their areas. Indeed, 72% of the victims of violent crime indicated that they knew their offenders — 58% by name and 14% by sight.
This may explain the relatively high rate of crime reporting in these areas, particularly reporting to the police. These rates indicate that, despite their very limited presence and poor visibility, the police are still viewed as the primary authority responsible for dealing with crime in rural areas.
However, there appears to be a general lack of confidence in the ability of the police to deal with crime, as well as widespread dissatisfaction with the service they provide. Fewer than a quarter of respondents believed that the police were able to deal effectively with crime in their areas.
This is primarily the result of general weaknesses in policing in South Africa, including limited resources, an overly centralised and bureaucratic hierarchy, a lack of appropriate skills and training, and a shortage of managerial and investigative expertise. These challenges are compounded in rural areas by geographic isolation, inadequate infrastructure, the uneven allocation of resources and capacity constraints affecting both the police and the public.
Interventions aimed at enhancing the safety of people living in deep rural areas should therefore focus on improving policing rather than developing the complex, participatory and multi-agency social crime-prevention programmes being implemented or planned in some of South Africa’s urban areas.
The resources and capacity required for these programmes either do not exist or are underdeveloped in rural areas. Interventions focused on improving policing are therefore most likely to have the greatest impact in the short to medium term. Improved policing is also the intervention most preferred by people living in these areas.
The limited police presence and infrastructural constraints mean that most interactions between the police and the communities they serve occur at police stations when assistance is sought. Policing in these areas is therefore predominantly reactive. Interventions should focus on improving the services delivered at community safety centres or charge offices, as well as strengthening intelligence and detective functions.
This requires amendments to current performance-measurement systems, which focus largely on reported crime rates. Measures based on arrests, charges and conviction rates for priority crimes should instead become central to performance assessment.
