The South African Police Service (SAPS) has adopted ‘community policing’ as
its basic philosophy for dealing with crime in communities. Community policing aims to bring the police and community together to solve problems of crime. The definition of community policing is: ‘a philosophy that guides police management styles and operational strategies and emphasises the establishment of police-community partnerships and a problem-solving approach in response to the needs of the community. By working together the SAPS hopes to make communities safer places to live in. This forms part of the National Crime Prevention Strategy, which has meant a shift from crime control to crime prevention. It also emphasises crime as a social problem rather than a security issue. The National Crime Prevention Strategy provides for a number of preventative programmes and underlying these is the basic policy of community policing.

Community policing requires the SAPS to focus on giving a good service, working in partnership with the community through the Community Police Forums and being accountable to the community.

FORMING COMMUNITY POLICE FORUMS (CPFs)

The CPF is a forum representative of organisations and groups in the community and local government that works with the police around issues of safety and security. The objectives of CPFs are to:

• Promote communication and cooperation between the SAPS and the community
• Improve the police services to the community
• Improve the transparency and accountability of the SAPS to the community
• Help with joint identification of problems and how to solve these

THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY POLICE FORUMS

A CPF should play the following roles:

• To make sure that local police can explain to people what they are doing about crime in the area
• To check on how well the police are using their resources in dealing with crime in the community
• To monitor how well the police are doing their work in the community, for example, is it easy to find a police officer when you need one, are there always plenty of police visible at rallies and other mass events, do police patrol the streets, do police respond quickly when a crime has been reported, and so on
• To enquire into local policing matters, for example, what are the main problems with crime in the community, are the police dealing with these issues effectively and are the police using their resources most effectively

THE CPF CONSTITUTION

The CPF should have a constitution that contains the standard elements of a constitution, including the mission of the CPF, how decisions are taken, voting, meetings and financial procedures, etc.

PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN THE COMMUNITY AND THE POLICE

CPFs represent a partnership between the community and the police. These are the roles of each partner:

• The police run the police station – although some Forum members may be trained to help with administration work
• The community advises and helps the police and monitors their performance

A CPF may be consulted on these aspects of the day-to-day running of the police station:

• New appointments to the station
• Changes from foot patrols to bicycles or cars
• Changes in how the police operate
• Changes to the police station, including where new police stations should be built

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND CPFS

Local government should work with CPFs and Area Community Police Boards to set priorities and objectives for the forum. CPFs should work with local government by:

• Setting crime prevention strategies together and agreeing on how these will be carried out
• Assisting with developing targeted social crime prevention programmes
• Identifying flashpoints and crime patterns, communicating these to local government and the saps, and participating in problem-solving
• Mobilising and organising community-based campaigns and activities, and the resources that are needed to keep them going
• Facilitating regular attendance by local elected representatives at CPFs

The diagram below shows how the relationship between local government, community police forums and the SAPS should work. Relationships also need to be built with various other government departments for example, the various provincial social services departments.

FUNDING CPFS

Funding in part for the CPFs is made available from the Provincial Secretariat of Safety and Security. However, the majority of the funds have to be raised by the forum from local businesses or through holding fund-raising ventures. CPFs need money for various aspects of their work. For example, money to hire transport to bring people to workshops or to hire consultants to train members of the forum in how to mediate disputes.

CPFs are required to set up a Funding Foundation to manage the funds. The Funding Foundation is a Section 21 (not-for-profit) company that raises money for projects and manages the income and expenses of the forum. The Funding Foundation should have a separate board of trustees. The trustees can be chosen from community-based organisations, private businesses, religious groups, and so on. The CPF should appoint a professional auditor to audit the financial records every year.