Reforming South Africa's Criminal Justice System

If its ability to prevent, process and deter crime is any measure of its effectiveness, then reforming the system is now not only a necessity but a na

South Africa`s system of criminal justice is in a crisis. If its ability to prevent, process and deter crime is any measure of its effectiveness, then reforming the system is now not only a necessity but a national priority. Unfortunately, the system is not easily fixed; it is not characterised by a single problem that can be resolved speedily, but is characterised by blockages, many of which cause delays in other parts of the criminal justice pipeline.

The system, stretching across the departments of Safety and Security, Justice and Correctional Services, has never been a unified one. The links between the various departments are weak and the involvement of other departments such as Welfare, National Education and Health - that have to play key roles in the prevention of crime - is minimal.

Broadly, if it was to function effectively, the system should consist of both proactive and reactive components. Proactive crime prevention strategies are central to the longer term reduction of crime in South Africa. But they themselves are limited without effective institutions to process (and rehabilitate) offenders once crimes have been committed. While the development of proactive solutions to crime should be a priority, the focus - at least in the short to medium term - should rest on transforming the reactive components of the criminal justice system. Within this context, however, there is significant scope for the development of proactive strategies - rehabilitation of offenders being the most obvious.

Inevitably, reform efforts after 1994 concentrated almost exclusively on the front end of the criminal justice system - essentially the visible component of policing. Community policing has been the watch word of police efforts to sell themselves as more acceptable to the majority of the South African public. In truth, that focus has been as important a tool for transforming citizen`s views of the police as it has been to the change in ethos among police officers themselves.

The transformation of the most publicly visible component of the criminal justice system is still far from complete. But equally serious problems characterise the system further along - these are primarily in the areas of the detection of crime, the prosecution of offenders and in the system of incarceration.  

Author

Mark Shaw, Project Leader and Senior Researcher, Crime and Policing Policy Project, Institute for Defence Policy