An analysis of crime prevention as a core function of the South African Police Service

Abstract

The basic mission of the police is to prevent crime and disorder and this translates into measuring police efficiency by the absence of crime and disorder rather than the visible actions taken to deal with crime and restore the violated order. For almost two centuries now, crime prevention has been understood and approached as the core responsibility of the police as they are the active partners who are responsible to activate the community who is the passive partner towards crime prevention. Recently there are scholars, police scientists and researchers who are of the view that the police cannot prevent crime so crime prevention should not be the core function of the police. The study gives a detailed analysis of the proponents and opponents of crime prevention as the core function of the police. This analysis has been provided in the context of the origin of policing through to the modern era in policing in an attempt to find out for which purpose the police had been established for. This is done in order to track down whether the initial purpose for which the police had been established for has changed in modern policing, with the ultimate aim of affirming or negating the proposition by some of the proponents of crime prevention as not the core function of the police, who are of the view that crime prevention should no longer be the core function of the police, as used to be the case.The arguments and counter arguments on whether crime prevention is the core function of the police or not, as well as the response from the selected countries were analyzed. The golden thread that runs through the eras of policing is that crime prevention is and has always been the main function of the police. The relative ease of measuring police performance by reactive activities in comparison with proactive activities seems to indicate that the police might focus more working on these measurable activities as compared to crime prevention activities that could go unnoticed.