Partnership policing between the South African Police Service and the private security industry in reducing crime in South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, there are high numbers of criminal incidents that are reported to the police every year. Crime prevention needs different stakeholders to work together in order to reduce crime. The South African Police Service (SAPS) looks after the interests of all citizens while the Private Security Industry (PSI) looks after the interests of their paying clients. Only people who can afford to pay extra ‘private’ protection services that are rendered by private security service providers use these services. In this manner, the PSI is a very important stakeholder in crime reduction. Of critical importance is the effective collaboration between the PSI and SAPS in combating crime. The mixed methods approach was used in this study: qualitative (focus group discussions which were only used by the researcher to familiarise himself with the topic being studied and one-on-one interviews with the members of top management from both PSI and the SAPS) and quantitative (questionnaires completed by members of the PSI and members of SAPS from operational levels). The study revealed the following: • There are barriers to more effective partnership policing between the SAPS and PSI in combating crime. These barriers came from both sides (SAPS and PSI) whereby the SAPS are said to be looking down on PSI and taking time to respond to the crime scenes when called upon. On the other hand, the manner in which the security members behave on the crime scene was said to be problematic; • Lack of effective control of PSI by the regulating body makes it easy for fly-by-night security companies to operate in South Africa hence tarnishing the image of the PSI; • There is a need to give additional legal powers to the deserving private security officers, after thorough training, in order to qualify them as Peace Officers so as to strengthen their role in crime prevention in areas where they do not render their security services as opposed to the citizens powers that the private security officers have as outlined in section 42 of the Criminal Procedure Act No. 51 of 1977; • The Memorandum of Understanding between the SAPS and PSI should be formulated by the crime prevention stakeholders in order to combat crime effectively; • The security training should be improved in order to enable the security officers to help police combat crime effectively. Based on the research findings, the recommendations were formulated which, hopefully, would help the stakeholders to improve their roles in crime prevention.