---
title: "Flexible community policing is vital to local safety, but our CPFs are often ineffective"
description: "Many of South Africa’s community policing forums need strengthening, but the police can also use other means to build local relationships."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "ISS TODAY OP-ED"
author: "David Bruce"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/davidbruce/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-09-23-flexible-community-policing-is-vital-to-local-safety-but-our-cpfs-are-often-ineffective/"
published: "2024-09-23T13:10:28"
updated: "2024-09-23T13:29:44"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 867
---

# Flexible community policing is vital to local safety, but our CPFs are often ineffective

> Many of South Africa’s community policing forums need strengthening, but the police can also use other means to build local relationships.

By David Bruce · Published 23 September 2024, 15:10 SAST · Updated 23 September 2024, 15:29 SAST

## Key points
- Established in the 1990s to bridge the chasm of distrust between the public and police in post-apartheid South Africa, Community Policing Forums (CPFs) have had a mixed track record, with some successfully fostering cooperation while others have veered into promoting political or criminal interests, highlighting the need for a broader approach to community policing beyond just CPFs.
- Apartheid legacy in 1990s South Africa led to public hostility towards police due to their role in enforcing apartheid and suppressing protests.
- Community Policing Forums (CPFs) established in mid-1990s aimed to build trust between police and public, but their effectiveness has varied with some turning into platforms for political or criminal interests.
- Community policing is a flexible concept focused on negotiating police legitimacy through community partnerships, but SAPS faces trust deficit due to ineffectiveness and corruption.
- CPFs can enhance community understanding of criminal justice, mediate conflicts, and discourage violence, but other non-policing initiatives like community patrols and social development projects are also crucial for improving local safety.

## Content

One of the legacies of apartheid in 1990s South Africa was entrenched public hostility towards the police. This was a consequence of the role the police played in enforcing apartheid and brutally repressing protest and resistance.

When Community Policing Forums (CPFs) were first established in the mid-1990s, their core objective was to help the newly formed South African Police Service (SAPS) build relationships with the public and overcome mistrust. On balance, they succeeded in blunting community hostility and promoting some cooperation.

But beyond this, the value of CPFs has been highly variable. The broad ambition, reflected in the 1995 SAPS Act, was that the forums would help prevent crime by maintaining long-term partnerships between the police and communities. While there are positive examples, many others have been ineffectual, and some CPFs have turned into forums to promote political or even criminal interests.

CPFs are one of many applications of the community policing concept. The idea emerged from the recognition in democratic countries that police legitimacy, and thus authority, is not automatic. It must be negotiated with and through the communities in which they work. In democracies, elements of community policing are a necessary part of how policing is done.

#### **Flexible concept**

Community policing is a flexible concept – more a policing philosophy than a set of specific practices. According to a 2009 [study](https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/files/13387749/Henry_A._Mackenzie_S._2009_._Community_Policing_A_Review_of_the_Evidence.pdf), various practices are “commonly associated” with community policing. These include visible foot patrols, which facilitate direct interaction with community members (unlike vehicle patrols), neighbourhood meetings and liaison, coordination of neighbourhood safety initiatives, and work with young people.

As the SAPS is strongly aware, it faces a community trust [deficit](https://theconversation.com/south-africans-have-low-trust-in-their-police-heres-why-178821). This multifaceted challenge reflects the police’s reputation for ineffectiveness in improving public safety and high levels of police [corruption](https://issafrica.org/iss-today/insight-into-the-integrity-of-south-africas-police). Establishing CPFs hasn’t been enough to build respect and trust in the police. And continued police [brutality](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-08-02-trial-of-deputy-president-paul-mashatiles-vip-protection-unit-officers-postponed-to-august-20/) shows that community policing also didn’t encourage police to treat members of the public with respect.

The SAPS Act requires CPFs to be set up at each police station. As a result, the police have tended to equate community policing primarily with establishing and maintaining CPFs. Some station commanders believe community policing adds little value and delegate it to relatively junior members. The SAPS’ [rigid](https://issafrica.org/iss-today/south-africas-police-a-rigid-bureaucracy-struggling-to-reform) bureaucratic systems and compliance-oriented nature also mitigate against local-level innovation.

CPFs should not be seen as synonymous with community policing, but as one way to enable cooperation between the police and the people they serve. Research [shows](https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/collective-action-can-make-a-difference-a-conversation-with-robert-sampson) that community engagement can have a major impact on levels of safety.

And yet, despite the government’s frequent [references](https://www.stateofthenation.gov.za/assets/downloads/State-of-the-Nation-Address-2023.pdf) to their importance, CPFs are not always used optimally and sometimes do very little. There are multiple ways CPFs can be better used to improve local safety, including ensuring better reporting and information on crime and collaborative problem solving.

They can enhance community understanding of criminal justice issues, provide structured options for connecting varying interests in the community with the police, and mediate when conflict or misunderstanding arises between the public and police.

For example, CPFs can discourage the use of public violence during [protests](https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/watch-gauteng-police-station-attacked-amid-violent-protests-over-water-shortages-20240305) and help community members resolve their concerns peacefully. The African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum [works](https://apcof.org/wp-content/uploads/policing-and-non-nationals-community-police-forums-and-xenophobic-violence-in-south-africa.pdf) with CPFs to reduce xenophobia and prevent attacks against foreigners. CPFs could also help discourage [vigilantism](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-03-27-why-we-kill-mob-justice-and-the-new-vigilantism-in-south-africa-lawless-judgments/) and promote better responses to local challenges.

But the fact that CPFs could be better used in some cases shouldn’t mean all community policing eggs are put in the CPF basket. A major gap in the SAPS community policing repertoire is the limited use of foot patrols. Building up and managing community patrols can strengthen community policing and deepen public engagement. Effective CPFs should partner with such initiatives, but in the absence of a functioning forum, the police should cooperate with and oversee community patroller groups.

#### **Highly effective**

Also, community members who want to tackle crime should be aware that other non-policing [activities](https://issafrica.org/iss-today/two-western-cape-towns-bridge-the-poverty-and-race-divide) can be highly effective. They might assist with providing [parenting](https://issafrica.org/iss-today/breaking-patterns-of-violence-and-trauma-in-the-home) support, establishing safe spaces for children, and managing activities for young people.

Grappling with local dimensions of the [drug](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/sep/13/heroin-hustle-drug-crisis-project-helping-south-african-addicts) epidemic, based on reducing harm and promoting the resilience of young people against drugs, may also be considered. Personnel from the government’s social development departments should also work with communities and police to ensure these projects are effective.

Communities with strong CPFs may be better positioned to establish such non-policing initiatives. But CPFs shouldn’t become the sole arbiters of who is and who isn’t a legitimate role player in local safety. Affiliation with a CPF should not be a requirement for participation in local safety.

The SAPS should be alive to the possibility of strengthening CPFs’ contribution to local safety. But improving police effectiveness requires greater flexibility in applying the concept of community policing. Particularly where CPFs are dysfunctional, the SAPS should expand the range of approaches it applies to building partnerships with the public.

*David Bruce is an Independent Researcher and Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Consultant*

*This article builds on a presentation given at the SAPS Community Policing Consultative Forum on 6 September 2024.*

*Analysis for this article is funded by the Hanns Seidel Foundation and Bavarian State Chancellery.*

*First published by*[*ISS Today*](https://issafrica.org/iss-today)**.**