South Africa
Loading...
Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Abstract
South Africa is facing a major public safety crisis threatening its constitutional
democracy. Personal violent crime (murder, rape and robbery)
remains among the highest in the world; conuption in the public
service is rife; public protests about poor service delivery are frequent
(Powell, O'Donovan, and De Visser 2015), widespread, and often tum
violent; xenophobic attacks occur frequently (South African History
Online 2015); and industrial strike action has also resulted in violence.
Devastating natural disasters have, fortunately, been infrequent.
The state institutions concerned with public safety and corruption are
located mainly at the national level, but perform poorly to meet these
diverse challenges. Moreover, the national government's response to
crime has focused almost exclusively on law enforcement, neglecting
primary, secondary and tertiary crime prevention of a socio-economic
nature. The South African Police Service (SAPS), despite its size (nearly
194,000) (SAPS 2015, 309), has been demoralized by corruption from the
top to the bottom, it has been politicized, and its public order policing
is ill-equipped and inadequately trained to deal with frequent public
disturbances. The National Prosecuting Autholity (NPA), too, has been
politicized, and its success rate is declining (Redpath 2012). The national
court system has run up huge backlogs in trying cases and the national
Department of Correctional Services does little more than warehousing
a large and growing prison population of some 42,000 people awaiting
trial. Sentenced prisoners seldom receive the necessary services to
reduce the risk of re-offending after release.
Description
Keywords
South Africa, Constitutional democracy, Violence, Violent crime, Crime, South African Police Service (SAPS), Corruption, National Prosecuting Autholity (NPA), Department of Correctional Services
Citation
Steytler, N. and Mutingh, L. (2019). South Africa. In: Leuprecht, C. ed., Public security in federal polities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press