By Dirk Besdziek
Researcher, Gauteng Legistature
Published in African Security Review Vol 5 No 3,1996
INTRODUCTION
The position of city policing2 on South Africa’s policy agenda has recently been precarious - in early drafts of the new Constitution, city policing received no mention. For a time, it appeared as if city policing would lose the ‘constitutionality’ it enjoyed under the 1993 Interim Constitution. However, the new Constitution of South Africa has been finalised, with a clause providing for city policing inserted.
It is clear that the parameters within which city police services may be created, and by whose authority, have changed substantially from the provisions laid down in the Interim Constitution. The new Constitution allows for the establishment of municipal policing, but the legislative competency to do so can only be conferred upon a provincial legislature through national legislation.3 Alternatively, a provincial legislature may be completely circumvented, and national legislation may allow a municipality to establish a municipal police service subject only to the provisions of that national legislation. The one piece of national legislation that specifically details city policing is the Police Services Act, No 68 of 1995.
The Police Services Act provides that
The Police Services Act makes no provision for the powers and functions of city police services, apart from the prescriptions accorded the Minister, and makes no reference to the role of the provincial Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Safety and Security in the establishment of city police services (although this has been included in the Interim Constitution of South Africa, Act No 200 of 1993). Currently, and without the provisions contained in the Interim Constitution, the Police Services Act appears to provide an insufficient framework for establishing city police services.
Understandably, city policing was not a priority for the Constitutional Assembly - while concerned with making adequate provision for policing in general, the Assembly’s members would have had little time to focus specifically on city policing. Notwithstanding these legislative inadequacies, the momentum towards city policing that has built up at local council level, particularly in Gauteng, will be difficult to contain.
The viability and utility of city police services, as a local contribution to the national crime prevention effort, are already the subject of some consensus among many traffic and security heads, local and provincial politicians and the provincial MEC for Safety and Security in Gauteng. Indeed, there also appears to be growing consensus at provincial level. In his opening address to the Gauteng Legislature in February 1996, Premier Tokyo Sexwale stated that, "[a] major focus for 1996 will be investigating the feasibility and desirability of effective Local Authority Policing in Gauteng."4 Accepting that city policing remains on the policy agenda, the debate on the details of the role, powers, function and structure of such services continues.
This article suggests that an accurate understanding of the dimensions of crime in South Africa must inform policy-makers who endeavour to make inroads against the problem locally. Such an understanding, it is argued, determines that ‘crime prevention’ must be understood far more widely than it has been traditionally. The article presents an overview of the structures, powers and functions of the French municipal police. It concludes that, if a wider understanding of crime prevention is accepted, the French municipal police provide valuable lessons for South African policy-makers. These lessons are of particular pertinence to the functions of city police services.
CRIME IN SOUTH AFRICA
In his address to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, Premier Sexwale highlighted the overwhelming relevance of crime to the progress and development of Gauteng: "Our vision of Gauteng as a growth-driven, ethical society will not be achieved this year unless the scourge of crime is removed from our lives. More resources, even greater community involvement, a stiffer criminal justice system and a tough stance on crime and its causes will, therefore, characterise all action of government this year."5 The Premier labelled crime and the need for solutions to the problems it poses, as "number one on our agenda of urgent needs."6 He suggested that the issue was not so much whether South Africa is afflicted by crime, because crime is an international problem varying only in degree from country to country. Rather, international traders, investors and tourists are focused on the political will of the government to actually combat crime, and on whether this same political will enjoys popular support.7
Conventional wisdom in South Africa has it that crime and violence are indeed of uppermost concern to, and have a negative impact on foreign investors and potential tourists. An articulation of this belief has been made by the resurrected South Africa Foundation (SAF) in its Growth For All strategy document, released in January 1996. Chapter three of the document provides a detailed study of ‘Dealing with crime and violence’ in South Africa. The document is a substantial contribution to the debate on the costs to society of crime and violence, and how these need to be addressed over the medium and long term. Unfortunately, while it provides an impressive array of statistical crime data to demonstrate the growth of crime and violence in South Africa from 1988 to 1995, the document is content simply with the inference that growing crime must have an impact on foreign investment and tourism. The SAF suggests: "Crime imposes direct financial, physical and emotional costs on society ... For example, losses of foreign investment and tourism have probably been large and may be rising. [Further c]rime and political instability are among the key concerns of foreign investors, as indicated in country risk studies and opinion surveys." 8 This inference is neither explored, nor subjected to further scrutiny.
The perception that crime and violence seriously inhibit foreign investment has been revisited and contradicted by the most recent research, commissioned by the Nedcor Project on Crime, Violence and Investment. In his paper, ‘Crime and Violence in South Africa: Their Impact on Foreign Investment Decision-Making’, Robin Lee9 reinforces Sexwale’s observation that the issue to foreign investors is not so much the existence of crime, but the government’s will to overcome it.
Lee suggests that the evidence provided by the empirical data of foreign investor activity on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for 1994 to 1996, the capital inflow into South Africa over the 1994, 1995 and 1996 period, and interviews with foreign companies that have demonstrated an interest in investing in South Africa, flies in the face of the ‘common wisdom’. Lee concludes: "[t]he current levels of crime and violence are not an important factor in the decisions by foreign companies to (re-)invest in South Africa."10
This conclusion is not without qualification. Lee found that evidence of the ‘political will’ on the part of government - that Sexwale has identified as crucial to foreign investment - is readily jeopardised by the link made by foreign investors between rising crime rates and ‘political instability’. There is some convergence here between the positions of Sexwale and Lee, and the SAF. Primarily, most of those foreign companies interviewed for the Nedcor study felt that, while crime and violence in South Africa should not warrant any special measures over and above those they would expect in any other country in which they invest, the South African government should be doing more to combat crime and violence.
Secondly, the linkage between rising crime, government action and perceptions of ‘political instability’ needs to be appreciated. Although crime and corruption were demonstrated to be some of the lowest factors concerning foreign companies, the political and social stability of South Africa was the second highest factor after ‘market growth for that company’s products’ of concern to them. While political violence has demonstrably declined since 1994 (except in KwaZulu-Natal) and foreign investors perceive a country that is politically stable, the perception of a rise in political violence and instability would impact negatively on these positive perceptions. This is likely to happen, warns Lee, if ordinary crime rises to extraordinary high levels, and it is interpreted as a lack of political will and competence by the government to govern the country effectively.11 This would then spill over into interpretations of ‘political instability’ and could quite conceivably lead to a withdrawal of foreign investment.12
More ominously, growing perceptions of the omnipresence of crime have the potential to encourage elements of the citizenry to take the control of law and order into their own hands. Shaw has previously warned that many citizens have already made their own arrangements to protect themselves and their possessions.13 Such a development would further fuel the perception of ‘political instability’ and declining political will, that Lee spoke of, and precipitate a withdrawal of foreign investment.
The involuntary ‘exchange’ between the SAF and Lee highlights the need for accurate assessments of the dimensions of the crime problem in South Africa. Any strategies attempting to deal with crime, need to be premised on accurate understandings of the impact of crime on society and the economy. Lee’s rejection of the SAF position does not imply that growing crime rates are without real effects, but simply that evidence of its effects should not primarily be sought with foreign investors. Apart from the immediate horror of its most violent manifestations, the effects of crime are insidious and local, and it is this that should be the focus of the attention of policy-makers - crime’s most devastating effect is its influence on the perceptions of South Africa’s own citizens.
A growing sense of insecurity, essentially the "perceptions - whether justified or otherwise - of the safety and stability of living and investing in South Africa",14 is afflicting South Africans across the socio-economic spectrum.15 Its effect is corrosive: "South Africa’s economic (and political) stability is ... closely linked to the psychological factor of confidence. With confidence, much that looks unlikely or even impossible can be achieved and an upward spiral of development started. Without confidence a negative downward spiral - out of proportion with the realities of the situation - could begin."16 Further coincidence exists between Lee and the SAF on this issue. Both agree that local investment is adversely affected by rising crime rates.17 Again, the SAF presents no empirical data to substantiate this claim. However, research undertaken by Lee and to be released by the Nedcor Project on Crime, Violence and Investment, promises to present the necessary data to bear this out.18
GOVERNMENT RESPONSES
Sexwale suggested that crime prevention requires more resources, greater community involvement, stiffer sentencing and a tough stance on crime and its causes on the part of government. The moves towards the implementation of city policing are currently one component of the responses to growing crime rates by the provincial administration in Gauteng. The effectiveness of these city police services will depend on the powers and functions accorded to them. In the initial provisions for city policing made in the Interim Constitution of 1993, the powers and functions of city police services were laid out in Section 221(3)(a) as "the powers of such a police service shall be limited to crime prevention and the enforcement of municipal and metropolitan by-laws." Although the provisions of the Interim Constitution no longer apply, ‘crime prevention’ is arguably the central function of city police services and should be transferred to any new legislation, or be introduced via amendments into existing legislation, that establishes these services.
The enforcement of municipal and metropolitan by-laws is clear. The notion of ‘crime prevention’ was not defined in the 1993 constitutional provision, however, and presumably any extension of meaning might be attached to it. It is at this juncture that a wider understanding of crime prevention can be applied. Such an understanding should be based on an appreciation of the interrelationship between the cause and effect of crime.
Crime results from two factors which must act upon the perpetrator: the predisposition and the opportunity to commit a crime. At first glance, and in the traditional interpretations given to it by police personnel, ‘crime prevention’ addresses the issue of an opportunity to commit a crime. Responses to growing crime rates by government, society, and the police services themselves, have traditionally been to augment the police, ensure higher police visibility, more dense police saturation of crime prone areas, enhancing the powers of the police, ensuring the swift and efficient judicial process of offenders, and applying harsher sentences.19 Crime prevention actions, therefore, are interpreted rather mechanically as ‘street-level’, high profile patrolling by police officers in vehicles or on foot. Such patrolling has the twofold effect of presenting a beacon of security to the citizenry and constituting a deterrent to the would-be criminal. Unfortunately, it only addresses half the equation of what influences the criminal to commit the crime in the first place. In other words, however laudable the visible presence of police officers, the narrow definition of ‘crime prevention’ is an incomplete solution. Crime prevention must also be understood to mean the elimination of the predisposition to commit crime. Some appreciation of this has already emerged.
Camerer has written that "... the police are not solely responsible for preventing crime, since many of the conditions affecting crime lie outside their control. A broad range of social and economic factors affect the incidence of crime, and an effective crime prevention strategy needs to involve all actors from a broad spectrum beyond the ambit of the criminal justice system. Policy makers interested in reducing crime have rarely dealt with broader aspects of the economy - which is rather short-sighted, considering that social factors such as economic inequality, unemployment, poverty, racism and social disorganisation predict fluctuations in crime rates more reliably than factors based on police, courts or prisons."20 Comprehensive crime prevention is in effect a long term undertaking. It encompasses development and social reconstruction initiatives that will eliminate the conditions in which the predisposition to commit crime flourishes. Any crime prevention strategy that is designed by government will need to be based on the input and ongoing co-operation of a wide range of agencies: civil society formations, such as community organisations, non-government development organisations; business; educational institutions; welfare; employment and labour; and transport and housing agencies.21
The government already operates according to a social Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Deputy Defence Minister Ronnie Kasrils has referred to the RDP as part of an integrated strategy against crime, because it aims to improve socio-economic conditions and reduce the opportunity for lawlessness.22 The RDP itself is silent on crime and its causes, but the relevance that Kasrils has attached to its role in combating the predisposition to commit crime, is not misplaced. Social reconstruction is essential to eliminate the predisposition towards crime, and conversely, the elimination of crime is essential for social reconstruction.
This understanding has also been reflected in two important national government initiatives of 1996: the National Growth and Development Strategy, and the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) of the National Ministry of Safety and Security. According to the 1996 Budget Review, the objective of the National Growth and Development Strategy is to advance the ideals of the RDP. It does this by setting medium and long term targets for economic growth. The policies of the Strategy are based on six pillars:
The draft NCPS defines itself within the National Growth and Development Strategy, which it sees as "... a long term strategy which will serve to address the socio-economic dysfunctions which contribute to, and are commonly typified, as the main reasons for crime... The National Crime Prevention Strategy is a medium term support strategy which seeks to desegregate the various crime combating endeavours and to support operational endeavours by creating a favourable environment for the combating of crime. The National Crime Prevention Strategy, however, also produces short term benefits."24 The Strategy thus claims to address crime according to a three-tier strategy: the long term Growth and Development Strategy; the short to medium term National Crime Prevention Strategy, and the short term Police Plan.
The National Crime Prevention Strategy explores the linkages between crime and social reconstruction. "[The] breakdowns of social order which lead to crime are largely the result of socio-economic factors - factors which have not traditionally been viewed as the responsibility of the police. Instead of treating criminality solely as the result of individual deviance, it is now also seen as the result of social processes - and that the resolution thereof lies in a multi-dimensional approach to reconciliation, reconstruction and development, demanding multi-disciplinary interaction and co-operation. The solution to crime must therefore go beyond reactive intervention and involve a range of different agencies and structures in government, society and commerce."25
The identification of a three-tier strategy that aims to give structure to the link between crime and social reconstruction, should be reflected in policing operations. As such the NCPS provides that the South African Police Services operate, and have priorities defined on a local, provincial and national level. The NCPS identifies the need for the maximum delegation of powers and authority: "Such delegation is required in order to maximise the effectiveness of local police initiatives because most crime is best managed at local level."26 Camerer reinforces this, and has found that international experience bears out the notion that crime prevention strategies should be directed by national government, but driven at local level. This, quite simply, "... rests on the need for consistency in crime prevention programmes which local government can provide, since local agencies are better able to co-ordinate the activities of a variety of services."27 City police services would be ideally placed to satisfy this notion.
Unfortunately, while the understanding of the relationship between social reconstruction and crime now permeates the national strategy positions, it has received no articulation in the interpretation of crime prevention in debates at the local and provincial level. The Gauteng Government’s Local Authority Policing document contains strategies that risk inheriting the narrow interpretation of crime prevention that police strategists have traditionally operated with. In the space created by the absence of a rigorous definition of their powers and functions, it might be suggested that the new city police services, where they are established, should be empowered with a wider crime prevention brief. It should ideally have an impact on social reconstruction and development and contribute much more broadly to the ‘security’ perceptions of the citizens of Gauteng, than would otherwise be the case. The development of the French municipal police provides some lessons in this regard.28
AN OVERVIEW OF THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL POLICE:
The Role of French Mayors
The French municipal police services were first established in 1983 under the decentralisation policy of Mitterand’s early presidency.29 They have since grown to their present size, with approximately 500 cities and towns employing in the region of 10 000 municipal police officers. (Lyon currently has the biggest municipal police service in France.) While the opportunity for the establishment of municipal police was created by the national government, where such services do exist, they have been established at the insistence of the local mayor. Municipal police services are the result of the efforts of mayors who have mobilised political support for the creation of such services. This is a result of the politically significant power of the institution of mayor in France, in contrast to the more limited role played by mayors in South Africa. In fact, in France the municipal police is the responsibility of the mayor - it has no direct accountability to the local city council.
Not all French mayors have created municipal policing. Invariably, it has been the case that towns under conservative mayors have established municipal policing. Socialist mayors have continued to regard any form of policing as a national function, and generally have not endorsed the establishment of municipal police services. The establishment of municipal police at the sole initiative of the mayor renders its existence more precarious than the National Police service. However, mayors supporting municipal police services are usually elected because of an overwhelming public perception of the need for municipal policing. This sentiment ensures that any mayoral candidate campaigning to abolish municipal policing would probably not be elected for an extended period of time.
Powers and Functions of the French Municipal Police
The French municipal police consists of local civil servants in terms of civil service classifications who are paid by their employing municipality. On any municipality’s staff organigramme, municipal police is just one more service on offer by the mayor. Safety and security are the primary responsibility of this service (this is not an equivalent conceptualisation of ‘safety and security’ as in South Africa). The French municipal police’s safety and security function does not equip them with powers of arrest, over and above those of ordinary citizens, although the chief prosecutor in Amiens has given that city’s municipal police services the authorisation to hold and physically detain transgressors while they await the National Police to effect a proper arrest. They also have no power to request identification from anyone. While the municipal police enjoys complementary relations with the National Police, it is forbidden to undertake patrols with them. The municipal police effects patrols on foot, by car or by bicycle, but its jurisdiction is limited strictly to the city in which it is employed. If police members are confronted by any violence, incivility or crime in progress, the municipal police are obliged to call upon the National Police immediately. It is illuminating that, in cities where crime is unusually high, the National Police, rather than the municipal police, is reinforced. The municipal police is not regarded as the primary agency through which to solve increased crime problems.
For various reasons, the French are reluctant to increase the powers of municipal police. On no account would the creation of a service parallel to the National Police at the local level, be encouraged. Enhancing the powers and functions of the municipal police is also opposed on the grounds that such services are not accountable to elected representatives at national level. Furthermore, there is the danger that municipal police services could quickly degenerate into the political tool of a powerful mayor. Indeed, this was the case with initial municipal police services that were often staffed by political followers of the local mayor.
Despite their lack of extensive accountability and their limited ‘policing’ powers, the municipal police fulfils an important community service function on behalf of local municipalities. Amiens has begun to decentralise its municipal police in an effort to reach out and improve relations with all communities. It has also started recruiting its municipal police personnel from ‘sensitive’ communities where crime and delinquency are unusually high, a move that has further improved relations with such communities. Amiens now has satellite posts, operating for 24 hours a day, in the major outlying residential areas of the city. In these residential areas, 160 buildings are linked by an emergency number to the municipal police, decreasing burglaries. The opening of satellite stations has led to citizens approaching the municipal police for assistance more often than before. Complaints received by the municipal police are not usually about major crimes, but smaller incivilities or conflict. Any crime or violence that may be of interest to the National Police, is immediately communicated to them.
The French municipal police is unarmed, except in Nice where guns are worn by special permit only, and may only be used to deter. Because they are not armed, the municipal police’s conduct is less aggressive than that of the National Police, a factor enhancing its positive image in local communities.
In the French experience, the uniform and presence of the municipal police are its greatest assets. Uniforms ensure visibility and symbolise stability to a public that is quickly unsettled by any disturbances. However, researchers at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Sécurité Intérieure (IHESI) warn that uniforms should never constitute an excessively authoritarian symbol. In the case of the proverbial ‘no-go areas’ - those areas usually inhabited by immigrant French - police officers in uniform will be subject to harassment by inhabitants. Only plainclothes police officers are tolerated by youths in such areas.
Funding
The French municipal police is funded out of local city budgets. In Amiens, for example, only two per cent of the city budget is allocated to municipal policing. Wealth disparities between cities in France are not as extreme as those found in South Africa, thus the notion of ensuring an equitable distribution of resources across various different cities is not as important as it is in South Africa.
Training
A uniform standard to guide training and recruitment for municipal police in France is currently being drafted. It is expected that this draft legislation will be tabled in September 1996. Previously, the training of municipal police was provided by the local municipality and averaged approximately six months. In Amiens training includes communication skills, criminal law, and psychology. Trainee officers are also given self-defence training to protect themselves - municipal police officers are equipped with truncheons for this purpose.
THE APPLICATION OF THE FRENCH EXPERIENCE
It was shown above that the French municipal police services are structurally distinct from the National Police and the Gendarmerie. The powers and functions of the municipal police are similarly distinct. They address themselves to crime prevention, a function that is perceived to complement the efforts of the National Police. However, their brief is far wider than what is understood by crime prevention in South Africa.
The municipal police in France does not have more power to effect an arrest than individual citizens. They have no power to demand identification from any transgressor; they bear no arms (apart from a baton with which to defend themselves from aggression); they have no powers of search and seizure; or any of the other ‘repressive’ powers that are usually associated with police officers. In effect, the French municipal police are simply ‘citizens in uniform’, representing a service provided by the local mayor to his or her citizens, and which functions to counteract public insecurity and fear of crime.
It has been the French experience that a fear of crime does not necessarily result from an increase in crime rates, and where it does, it is usually disproportionate to the level of crime people are actually subjected to. Rising fears of crime are symptomatic of a wider security malaise - fear of unemployment, economic instability, concerns over adequate housing and accommodation, and growing delinquency. These overlap to foster a general feeling of insecurity. The National Police had disinvested itself at local level and many smaller police stations were closed down as the National Police centralised into inner city stations. Pressure increased on local mayors to address the situation, and the private security industry flourished. The situation was exploited for political gain, and the French political ‘right wing’ turned crime, insecurity and immigration into campaign platforms. The response of many mayors was to promise their constituents municipal police services, and in many areas mayors were elected precisely because they promised the creation of such services. The parallels of this experience with that of South Africa at present are obvious. Similarly, the South African Police (SAP) of the previous government had disinvested itself from crime prevention and intervention, and had assumed the political role of propping up the apartheid system. This ‘disinvestment’ was followed by a concomitant growth in the private security industry.
Since the early 1980s, the French municipal police has gone through various phases in its development to reach its present position. Originally, the brief of the municipal police was only to address crime. Unfortunately, the growing presence of municipal police (very often armed and attired like the National Police) and private security response firms merely served to exacerbate the general unease of the population, and confirm their worst fears. The municipal police began as little more than local reproductions of the National Police. It was staffed by a large number of former members of the National Police who had become disillusioned with its functioning under Mitterand’s presidency, and, although the legal sanction did not exist, it engaged in interventions in crime in the same way as the National Police.
By the 1986-1989 period, it became apparent to many mayors that the maintenance of local police services, approximating their National Police counterparts so closely, was no longer sustainable. It also became apparent that the many factors that influenced crime were not to be addressed simply by creating local police that were mirror images of the National Police. Furthermore, the legislative framework had never been created to endorse the existence of such services, and the National Police had begun to reassert its role in areas from which it had ‘withdrawn’. Municipal police services were compelled to redefine their identity, and dropped their aggressive crime fighting strategies to adopt a more socially conscious approach. Prevention came to replace repression. The municipal police began to be transformed into what has come to be referred to as ‘social regulation’ agencies.
The ideal of the ‘social regulation’ function of the French municipal police is to facilitate communication between the local council, the mayor, and civil society. The crime prevention function has developed quantitatively and now includes identification of potential crime before it is actually perpetrated. In this regard, it is the function of municipal police services to identify problem families, problem youths, potential delinquency, truancy and the like, and to alert councils or social welfare agencies to undertake early preventive action. The municipal police are also the ‘eyes and ears’ of the local council. It is their duty to report damaged or vandalised public buildings, broken fixtures, electricity installations or problems with water supply. They will also receive complaints on various issues by members of the public, relay these to the local council, and will, in turn, relay the council’s response to the complainant. In order to carry out this ‘social regulation’ function, municipal police has been decentralised away from city centres into suburbs where satellite stations are based. Municipal police personnel have also undertaken to move into the areas of their jurisdiction and to reside in housing estates or complexes from which much delinquency emanates.30
CONCLUSION
It is obvious that the particular levels of crime, and more specifically violent crime, afflicting South African society will set certain priorities when city police services are created here. Crime fighting will have a far higher priority than any ‘social regulation’ function. However, there might be some merit in the argument that France’s experiment with municipal police services holds certain lessons that are communicable. If, from the outset, the notion of local authority/civil society interface is incorporated into the crime prevention strategy of South African city police services, and if effective crime prevention is understood to mean the identification of crime at the source, then we will have succeeded in imbuing Gauteng’s short term, local ‘crime prevention’ service with the long term ‘confidence building’ function alluded to by Robin Lee in his reference to ‘spirals of development’. By undertaking some of the functions that the French municipal police have begun to fulfil, the future city police services of Gauteng will, albeit only at microcosmic level, address the link between crime, security and social reconstruction. The operations of city policing will address the reality that crime prevention depends on social reconstruction and development, and social reconstruction and development depends on effective crime prevention.
In the final analysis, a city police service will constitute only one tool at the disposal of any government to address the wider understanding of crime prevention. The operationalising of such an understanding should not so much be to eliminate the capacity of city police services to make immediate inroads against crime in Gauteng, but for policy-makers to integrate and link city police services from their inception into the objectives of the strategies for National Growth and Development and National Crime Prevention. The French experience has shown that once crime, real or perceived, has been brought under control, city police services are ideally placed to address the wider safety and security needs of citizens. By working to prevent some of the sources of insecurity, city police can reduce the onerous task of focusing on the manifestations of this insecurity and having to overcome this with traditional repression.
1 This article is published as part of the Crime and Policing Policy Project, a venture jointly sponsored by the British High Commission, the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany, the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, Q Data Consulting, the Rand Merchant Bank, the Royal Netherlands Embassy in South Africa and the United Nations Development Programme.
2 ‘City policing’ is a generic term for what is described as ‘metropolitan policing’, ‘municipal policing’ or ‘local authority policing’.
3 See South Africa, Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Bill, 6 May 1996, Section 199(3)(b) and Schedule 4(A).
4 Tokyo Sexwale, Growing, Developing, Working, opening address by the Premier to the Gauteng Legislature, Johannesburg, 23 February 1996, p. 26.
5 Ibid., p. 25.
6 Ibid., p. 9.
7 Ibid.
8 South Africa Foundation (SAF), Growth for All, January 1996, pp. 25 & 30.
9 Robin Lee, Crime and Violence in South Africa: Their Impact on Foreign Investment Decision-making, unpublished report for the Nedcor Project on Crime, Violence and Investment, Johannesburg, 1996.
10 Ibid., p. 7.
11 See Lala Camerer, Crime Prevention in Context, in Mark Shaw & Lala Camerer, Policing the Transformation: New Issues in South Africa’s Crime Debate, IDPMonograph Series 3, April 1996, p. 27.
12 Lee, op. cit., pp. 12-13.
13 Mark Shaw, Towards Safer Cities?: Crime, Political Transition and Changing Forms of Policing Control in South Africa, African Security Review, 4(5), 1995, p. 9; Mark Shaw, Partners in Crime?: Crime, Political Transition and Changing Forms of Policing Control, Centre for Policy Studies Research Report 39, June 1995, pp. 108 & 110; Camerer, op. cit., p. 25.
14 SAF, op. cit., p. 29.
15 Shaw, op. cit., June 1995, p. 39.
16 Lee, op. cit., p. 2.
17 SAF, op. cit., p. 30; Robin Lee, telephone interview, May 1996.
18 Lee, ibid.
19 Sexwale, op. cit.; SAF, op. cit., p. 34.
20 Camerer, op. cit., p. 22.
21 Ibid., p. 24.
22 Shaw, op. cit., 1995, p. 37.
23 South Africa, 1996 Budget Review, Department of Finance, 1996, pp. 2.5-2.6.
24 South Africa, National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS), unreleased draft report, Ministry of Safety and Security, 1996, p. 11.
25 Ibid., p. 3.
26 Ibid., p. 9.
27 Camerer, op. cit., p. 26.
28 The information on the French municipal police contained in this article, is the result of a study tour to France in April 1996 with the Gauteng Legislature. The tour included visits to the municipal police of Amiens and Marseilles.
29 R Kania, The French Municipal Experiment, Police Studies, 12(3), Fall 1989, p. 127; Mark Shaw, Metropolitan and Municipal Policing, in Shaw & Camerer, op. cit., pp. 41-50.
30 Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Sécurité Intérieure (IHESI), interview with Jean-Louis Sayous on municipal policing, Paris, April 1996.