JOBURG SOUTH – The Gauteng Department of Community Safety has gone through numerous name changes, when the department was established in 1995 it was known as Safety and Security Secretariat.
It was with a budget of R16-m, then it changed its name to Safety and Liaison as part of the transitional period and at the present day it is called Gauteng Department of Community Safety.
This is in line with the Constitution of the country section 206 (3), which established the department and outlined its function. Back then the department had the daunting task of transforming the police force from apartheid to democratic policing, a process that saw the development of the White Paper on Safety and Security, which led to the department contributing in the drafting of the National Crime Prevention Strategy and the amendment of the South African Police Act, the amended Act empowered government, including the department to, among other things, exercise civilian oversight over SAPS. This intense transition took place between 1994 and 1998.
The journey of creating democratic policing included ensuring that communities also take an active role in the fight against crime and also implementing social crime prevention programmes such as crime awareness campaigns, Adopt a Cop and Sports Against Crime. During 1999 to 2003 the department was now planting the seeds of democratic policing. Mechanisms to rebuild trust in policing such as the establishment of the Community Policing Forums were also in place, this was to enhance the idea of community policing. The launch of the Take Charge campaign also set into motion the patroller movement. Patrollers are now force multiplier and their visibility has made a tremendous difference in fighting and preventing crime and ultimately creating safer communities.
Certain policies and legislative mandates laid the ground and the foundation as to how the department needed to carry out certain duties. Implementation of a civilian oversight model meant that we now have SAPS that accounts to a provincial department. Police station visits and quarterly review sessions were now conducted wherein SAPS account for policing in the province.
The department’s advocacy in gender based violence saw the need of nurturing the battle of democratic policing in 2004 to 2008 by improving services for victims of gender based violence. The violence against women and children (VAWAC) Strategy was first developed in 2001. Concerned about the scourge of abuse against women and children, the department established Ikhaya Lethemba, provincial flagship within the Department of Community Safety. This facility is a one stop centre for victims of domestic and sexual violence. The centre ensures that victims are able to access multi-disciplinary services, including counselling, medico-legal, prosecutorial and policing services. Victim empowerment centres were also established and monitored in all police stations, furthermore safe houses known as Green Doors sites were also rolled out throughout the province, particularly in places where police station was far off. This Green Doors is designed to ensure seamless continuum of care for victims and also to minimize secondary victimization. Programmes such as Men As Safety Promoters (MASP) assist the department in fighting violence against women and children. MASP seek to contribute to reduction of gender based violence and address the impact that it has on men in order to promote a violence free society for vulnerable groups.
Strategies such as the Gauteng Aggravated Robbery Strategy were developed in order to combat the plague of business or house robberies and vehicle hijackings. The implementation of this strategy resulted in a decrease in crimes such as business robberies, cash-in-transit heists and ATM bombings.
The Department of Community Safety expanded its mandate by including Gauteng Traffic Police as a component of the department, with the primary goal of reducing road fatalities and accidents through traffic law enforcement. The implementation of Gauteng Road Strategy saw a 35% reduction of accidents and fatalities instead of the 30% that was given to the department. Reduction of fraud and corruption in Driver’s Licence Testing Centres (DLTCs) and Vehicle Testing Centres (VTSs) was another key objective to this strategy. To this end the department targeted those facilities for compliance audits and inspections. This has resulted in closure of some of those stations and arrests of officials.
2009 to 2013 are the years from when we are now reaping the first fruits, of after toiling in virgin land. The province hosted the most significant matches during Confederation Games in 2009 and FIFA World Cup in 2010. Through the Gauteng Traffic Police, other law enforcement agencies, we delivered an incident free traffic management plan.
Nineteen years into democracy, we can safely say that Gauteng is gradually changing for the better. We are slowly realising modern policing that is not done only be SAPS, but also communities who are also active in policing through structures as CPFs, street committees and community safety forums, which are channels for local coordination of crime prevention. Imperfect as the policing situation is, the murder rate in Gauteng has dropped by 3 257, sexual violence 4 104 and robbery with aggravating circumstances by 23 587 just to mention a few. The Criminal Justice System is implementing multi-disciplinary strategy aimed at stabilizing and reducing crime, particularly gender based violence. In order to improve forensic capacity in the province, the department, through a forensic task team, identified forensic social work courses, offered by the University of Cape Town. A total of 30 students have commenced with studies in this discipline, through a bursary scheme funded by Gauteng Department of Community Safety. These bursaries will also be extended to medical graduates to pursue careers as forensic pathologist, forensic officers, clinical forensic nurses and laboratory technicians.
Strides have indeed been made since 1994, these successes, as minor as they may seem in comparison to the future we desire, have contributed in the transition of policing in our Gauteng Social crime prevention programmes and continues to play a vital role in ensuring that crime prevention measures are in place as attempts to avoid crime taking place. Selfless patriots also continue to participate in crime prevention and safety structures to make sure that indeed all people in South Africa are allowed to feel safe.
Faith Mazibuko is the MEC for Community Safety in Gauteng
