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Reducing and preventing violence is critical to national development and to achieving the United
Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. This policy brief reviews current expenditure on the criminal
justice system and what that spend has achieved. It also looks at spending on violence prevention and
shows that while South Africa spends over R126 billion a year on criminal justice, only R9 billion is spent
by the state on programmes that can prevent violence. This must change if violence is to be reduced.
POLICY BRIEF
Reducing violence in South Africa
From policing to prevention
Chandré Gould, Diketso Mufamadi, Celia Hsiao and Matodzi Amisi
2REDUCING VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM POLICING TO PREVENTION
Introduction
South Africa’s National Development Plan envisages that by 2030 ‘people
living in South Africa should feel safe and have no fear of crime’.1 The
contraction of the economy in 2017 and the likelihood that government
budgets will grow ever tighter over the next few years creates an urgent
imperative to ensure that we are addressing the need for South Africans to be
and feel safe in the most cost-effective, sustainable way.
South Africa is one of the 10 most violent countries in the world,2 despite
having achieved massive reductions in homicide levels since 1994.3 Murder
has increased annually over the past four years (2012/13-2015/16). This
raises the question of whether the emphasis placed on policing and the
criminal justice system to address crime and violence over the past 10 years
has been the right policy choice.
This policy brief argues that to see the long-term trend towards lower violence
levels sustained, and improved upon, we have to radically shift how we spend
state resources and what we spend them on. In short, we need to increase
our investment in preventive social programmes that reduce the risk factors
for violence while professionalising policing.4
Increases in policing
expenditure and the number
of police officers don’t
lead to better policing or a
more satisfied population,
or necessarily help reduce
serious violent crimes.
To see lower violence levels
in South Africa, there must
be a radical shift in how
state resources are spent.
More investment is
needed in preventive
social programmes.
In 2015 the loss in human
capital due to experiences of
violence during childhood in
the country was estimated
at roughly R238 billion –
almost double what is being
spent on the criminal justice
system annually.
Children who experience
neglect and abuse, or
witness violence, are at
increased risk of negative
health and behavioural
outcomes, and of
perpetrating violence.
To reduce and prevent
violence, the social,
economic and psychological
well-being of citizens must
be addressed.
Key points
Breaking entrenched cycles of violence is essential to
grow the economy and improve the nation’s health,
behavioural and social outcomes
This policy brief provides an overview of the current expenditure on the
criminal justice system and private security and looks at what this has
achieved. It also looks at what is known about spending on violence-
prevention programming and shows that while we are spending over
R126.71 billion a year on the criminal justice system, only R9 billion is being
spent by the state on programmes that can prevent violence.
We now have evidence from South Africa to show that preventing violent
crime (especially interpersonal violence) and breaking entrenched cycles
of violence is essential to growing the economy and improving the nation’s
health, behavioural and social outcomes. In the long term prevention is more
cost-effective than responding to violence after it has occurred.5
Spending on the criminal justice system
The criminal justice system is made up of a number of departments and
institutions. They include the South African Police Service (SAPS), the
Department of Correctional Services (DCS), the Department of Justice and
Constitutional Development (DoJ&CD), the Office of the Chief Justice and the
Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). In 2016/17 the combined
expenditure on the criminal justice system (CJS) amounted to R126.71bn (or
9.68% of total government expenditure6), as set out in the figure below.7 Over
POLICY BRIEF 106 | OCTOBER 2017 3
the past 10 years the budget allocation for police, courts
and prisons has increased from R46.6bn in 2005/6 to
R126.71bn today.8
As can be seen from the above chart, the SAPS receives
the lion’s share of expenditure on the criminal justice
system. Over the past 10 years the SAPS budget has
increased by 139.1% (see Figure 2). The additional
funding for the SAPS has largely been spent on
employing more staff, which was most likely a response
to increased public anxiety about crime.9 Between
2002/03 and 2011/12, over 68 000 additional posts
were created in the SAPS, bringing the total personnel
complement to almost 200 000. Since then there has
been a slight decline in numbers, bringing the total
number of SAPS staff in 2016/17 to 194 730 (see
Figure 3).
In 2013 researcher David Bruce looked at the impact of
the mass recruitment of staff by the SAPS between 2002
and 2012. He concluded that while the increase in SAPS
personnel numbers had a positive impact on the racial
balance in the organisation, and contributed towards
the formation of a black middle class, it did not result in
‘better policing’.10
In short he found that having more police officers
didn’t make for better policing outcomes – in part, he
argues, because the increased numbers placed more
Source: Estimates of National Expenditure 2017 (Abridged version) 22 February 2017.
Figure 1: Criminal justice system budgets 2016/17 (R billions)
Source: Treasury Budget Books.
Figure 2: SAPS budget increase 2007/8–2016/17
SAPS
Department of Correctional Services
Department of Justice & Constitutional Development and NPA
Chief Justice
IPID
R16.04bn
R21.58bn
R87.98bn
R0.87bn
R0.24bn
Rand (billions)
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 20015/16 2016/17
36.39
41.49
47.62
53.53 57.93
63.42
68.79 72.51 76.72
87.02
4REDUCING VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM POLICING TO PREVENTION
strain on the training and recruitment systems, with the
consequence that quality was sacrificed for quantity. Nor
did the increase in police numbers result in the public
having greater confidence in the police. The results of
the national Victims of Crime Survey show that there has
been a steady decline in household satisfaction with the
police over the past five years11 (see Figure 4).
In short, it is clear that neither increasing expenditure
on policing nor increasing the number of police officers
necessarily leads to better policing, or to a more satisfied
population. Even worse, it doesn’t seem to have had
Source: ISS Crime Hub (https://issafrica.org/crimehub/facts-and-gures/criminal-justice-performance).
Source: Statistics South Africa, National Victims of Crime Survey 2014/15.
Figure 3: SAPS personnel growth over the past 10 years (2006/7–2015/16)
Figure 4: Percentage of households satisfied with police
any impact on reducing the most serious violent crimes.
Figure 5 shows that while the murder rate (the number
of murders per 100 000 of the population) decreased
between 2006/7 and 2011/12, in the past four years it
has increased.
Reducing robberies has seen just as little success. Indeed,
in 2015/16 there were more cases of reported robberies
than 10 years before. Unfortunately, there are no statistics
for rape and domestic violence because the SAPS does
not disaggregate domestic violence from assaults; neither
does it provide consistent data on rape each year.
Personnel (thousands)Percent
200
195
190
185
180
175
170
165
160
65
64
63
62
61
60
59
58
57
56
2006/7 2007/8
2011
2008/9
2012
2009/10
2013/14
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16
2014/15
64.7
63.1
59.9
57.0
The biggest decrease in satisfaction
with police was found in the North West,
Northern Cape and Western Cape.
POLICY BRIEF 106 | OCTOBER 2017 5
Source: SAPS Crime Statistics 2015/16.
Source: SAPS Crime Statistics 2015/16.
Source: SAPS Crime Statistics 2015/16.
Figure 5: Murder rates 2004/5−2015/16
Figure 6: Number of murders in South Africa, 2005/6–2015/16
Figure 7: Numbers of robberies in South Africa 2006/7–2015/16
2015/16
Murders per 100 000 of population
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2004/5 2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15
40.3 39.6 40.5 38.6 37.3
34.1 31.9 30.9 31.1 32.2 32.9 34.0
Murders (thousands)
25
20
15
10
5
0
2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16
18 445 19 106 18 400 18 084
16 767 15 893 15 554 16 213 17 023 17 805 18 673
2015/16
Robberies (thousands)
2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15
126 038 117 760 120 920
113 200
101 039 100 769 105 488
118 963 129 045 132 527
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
6REDUCING VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM POLICING TO PREVENTION
The picture for non-violent organised crime and
corruption is also not very encouraging – the number of
cases detected and convicted remains extremely low as
shown in Figures 8 and 9.
But it is not only the government that invests large sums
of money to keep South Africans protected from crime
and violence. Those who can afford it spend an additional
R45bn on private security every year.12 So the massive
expenditure on private security does not seem to be
making people safer either.
Source: SAPS Annual Report 2015/16.
Source: SAPS Annual Report 2015/16.
Figure 8: Cases, arrests and convictions under the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act
2012/13–2015/16
Figure 9: Cases, arrests and convictions under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act
The police and private security companies represent the
sharp edge of the criminal justice system. These are the
people who respond to crime when it has happened, and
try to prevent it, by being visible and patrolling (among
other things). But what happens after that? How much
money are we spending bringing suspects to trial and
convicting them – and how successfully are we doing this?
Like the police budget, the budget for the National
Prosecuting Authority has increased significantly over the
past 10 years (as shown in Figure 10).
Number
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
2012/13 2013/14 2014/15
86
2015/16
58
21
11
70
53
15
129
39
9
83
6
PRECCA cases
PRECCA arrests
PRECCA convictions
Number
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2012/13 2013/14 2014/15
34
2015/16
13
10
4
9
5
1
8
7
6
12
10
POCA cases
POCA arrests
POCA convictions
POLICY BRIEF 106 | OCTOBER 2017 7
3,4
3,2
3,0
2,8
2,6
2,4
2,2
2,0
1,8
1,6
1,4
Rands (millions)
2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16
Although the NPA achieved a high 93% conviction rate
in 2015/16, the number of cases finalised dropped from
407 530 in 2003/4 to 319 149 in 2015/16 – a 22%
decrease.13 That means that while most cases the NPA
prosecutes result in a successful conviction, fewer cases
are being concluded. This is not because there are fewer
cases being referred to the NPA by the SAPS,14 but rather
because the NPA has shown an increasing tendency to
decline to prosecute ordinary cases in favour of informal
mediation. The decision to go for informal mediation is
rarely reviewed, nor is it guided by policy.15
Research suggests that this could be because the NPA
seeks to retain a high conviction rate and thus chooses
to prosecute cases only when they have a good chance
of securing a conviction, leaving other cases to be
resolved by alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.16
Source: ISS Crime Hub (https://issafrica.org/crimehub/facts-and-gures/criminal-justice-performance).
Source: SAPS and NPA Annual Reports.
Figure 10: NPA budget increase 2006/7–2015/16
Figure 11: SAPS arrests and NPA conviction trends 2006/7–2015/16
SAPS arrests
NPA finalisations
Number (millions)
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16
1 227 751
33 4 5 51
1 274 602 1 223 505
1 361 504
1 452 600
1 613 254
1 682 763
1 763 012 1 707 654
1 638 466
296 656
311 825 3 50 910
331 0 45
316 0 98
323 390
329 153
319 149
310 850
8REDUCING VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM POLICING TO PREVENTION
So what is happening to the many people who are
being arrested?
The figures suggest that most of them never go to trial,
and even fewer are convicted. Figure 11 compares the
number of arrests made by the police to the number
of convictions by the NPA over the past decade. It
shows that while SAPS arrests increased over the past
10 years, the number of cases finalised by the NPA
decreased by 7%.17 Because court cases take time to
be finalised, or may take place long after an arrest is
made, it is not possible to know how many of the more
than 1.6 million people who were arrested last year will
be convicted. However based on a rough calculation it
can be assumed that it will be less than 20%.
After being arrested, a suspect may be held in a
correctional facility before being tried – especially if they
have been arrested on suspicion of being involved in
a serious violent crime. Incarceration is also the last
step in the criminal justice process after conviction and
sentencing. This is when the Department of Correctional
Services steps in. This department is in many respects
the poor stepsister in the criminal justice system,
receiving a dramatically smaller proportion of the overall
CJS budget than the police.
In 2015/16 the budget allocation for the Department of
Correctional Services amounted to some R20.6bn
Of the 1.6 million people arrested
in 2015/16, only about 20% will
be convicted
(3% of the total national budget).18 Of this, R5.55 million
was spent on the incarceration of remand detainees (who
make up 45 043 of detainees in correctional facilities).19
With a total capacity of 120 000 people, South African
correctional facilities exceeded their capacity with the
number of prisoners recorded to be159 336 at the end
of the last financial year.20
Source: Annual reports of the Department of Correctional Services 2010-2015/16.
Figure 12: Inmate population 2006–2015
But even though more and more people are being
arrested each year by the police, the number of inmates
in South African correctional facilities has remained
relatively stable over the past 10 years. This number
could not grow any more without serious consequences
for the human rights of those incarcerated – unless there
was massive investment in building more prisons. But,
this would be a very bad investment, as Todd Clear, a
professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers
University-Newark, has shown in relation to the US
policies that have led to mass incarceration.21
The numbers show that more arrests do not lead to more
people being incarcerated, and in this respect South
Africa is not exceptional.22
Sentenced
Unsentenced
Inmates (thousands)
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
POLICY BRIEF 106 | OCTOBER 2017 9
It may be alarming to realise that there is no apparent
correlation between spending more on the criminal
justice system, increasing the number of police and a
reduction in crime rates. But in this regard South Africa is
not alone. Indeed, theorising the link between increasing
or decreasing crime rates and criminal justice policy
has been a central focus of criminological research and
theory for many years.23
Put simply, there is no reliable evidence that more police
and more people in prison equals lower crime rates.
There is however plenty of evidence that imprisoning
people has negative effects on the communities from
which they come, on their children and on society, while
having little or no impact on the probability that they will
offend again.24 This policy brief now looks at how much
the country is spending on preventing violent crime, and
the cost of inaction to prevent violence.
The cost of violence
The criminal justice system costs South Africa some
R126bn a year in direct costs, and an additional R45bn
is spent annually on buying security from companies. But
the real cost of violence is much higher than this.
Victims of violence often suffer injuries, both physical
and psychological; they may need medical attention,
and if employed will probably miss time at work. Even
after they have recovered physically, the trauma of
experiencing violence affects their well-being. It may
lead to anxiety, depression and even long-term physical
problems. This impacts not only on the victim’s employer,
but also their family, affecting children and their ability to
realise their potential.
Two South African studies have assessed the cost of
gender-based violence and violence against
children. Their findings show that the combined
costs are enormous.
In 2014 KPMG reported that they estimated the cost
of gender-based violence in the 2012/13 financial year
to have been anything from R28.4bn to R48.2bn,25
about 1% of GDP at the time. However this was by
their account, an underestimation, as it did not include
the cost to civil society – and most services for victims
of gender-based violence are provided by non-
governmental organisations.26
The report pointed out that the real costs of gender-
based violence were borne not only by the state,
perpetrators and victims but the whole of society:
companies whose staff were harmed, children whose
parents were harmed, parents whose children were
harmed, and so on. These costs escalate each year with
inflation, and the number of people carrying a burden of
trauma as a result of having experienced or witnessed
violence rises each year, greatly increasing the effect this
has on families across generations.
There’s no reliable evidence that more
police and more people in prison leads
to less crime
The other study, commissioned by Save the Children
South Africa,27 found that in 2015 the loss in human
capital due to experiences of violence during childhood in
South Africa was estimated to be around R238bn. This
is about 6% of the GDP, double what we are currently
spending on the criminal justice system annually, and
more than 10 times the cost of gender-based violence.28
The lesson from this study is that preventing children
from witnessing and experiencing violence, and ensuring
that they have a good start in life, is critical to building
an inclusive economy in the medium to long term and
will have a direct and significant impact on our country’s
GDP growth.29
Both of these studies demonstrate what the cost is of
not acting to reduce and prevent violence. Not investing
sufficiently in preventing gender-based violence and
violence against children contributes significantly and
directly to lowered human capital, which severely
impinges on our country’s economy. That is because
children who experience neglect and abuse, or who
witness violence, are likely to go on to repeat the cycle of
deprivation and disadvantage.
This is exacerbated by exposure to violence in the
home, stressed parents, harsh corporal punishment at
school and at home, and bullying at school. Together
this creates a toxic mix that massively reduces human
potential and lays the basis for continuing cycles
of violence.
10 REDUCING VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM POLICING TO PREVENTION
So how much is the government spending to
address this?
How much are we spending
to prevent violence?
When the Department of Planning, Monitoring and
Evaluation (DPME), on behalf of the Inter-Ministerial
Committee on Violence Against Women and Children,
and the cabinet undertook a Diagnostic Review of
the State Response to Violence Against Women and
Children,30 they found that there was no simple answer
to the question: How much is the state spending to
prevent violence? This is because spending on preventing
violence is split across 10 national and provincial
departments, and is not clearly delineated in budget
line items.
Nevertheless, the DPME arrived at a way of calculating
the costs and concluded that only R9bn was spent on
early interventions (to prevent violence) and care and
support programmes, ‘a mere 2.5% of the 10 national
departments’ entire expenditure budgets combined’.31
time. For any NGO, raising funds to support staff and
services is a constant struggle. Donor strategies and
decisions about what to fund change over time, and few
donors are willing to fund individual NGOs for more than
a few years at a time, expecting that NGOs will thereafter
find alternative sources of funding or access state funding.
These expectations are often not met. Also, over the past
few years there has been a decline in donor investment in
South Africa and this means that the services NGOs do
provide are threatened.
According to the evaluation the current shortcomings of the
state’s response to preventing violence against women and
children include:
1. A poor definition of the problem. Violence against
women is defined as ‘a women’s issue’ or a ‘crime
issue’, leading to an emphasis on the wrong part of the
state having to respond, and underplaying the need for
services to prevent and respond to violence. The result is
that much more money is spent on criminal justice and
less on services that prevent violence and help survivors
recover from trauma.
2. There is a comprehensive framework of laws and policies
but inadequate political will to consistently drive the
agenda for change. This means violence against women
and children is not prioritised, despite the lip service
paid to it. Also, most laws are not costed before they
are promulgated, and the state doesn’t have adequate
financial or human resources to implement them.
3. Those working for the state and responding to violence
(including to child abuse and neglect) experience
significant vicarious trauma, have inadequate support,
and often have to deal with unmanageably large case
loads. They therefore become insensitive and harsh in
their attitudes. Not enough is being done to address
their own inequitable gender norms and normalised
views of violence.
4. Finally, a substantial lack of coordination at community
level. The sectoral mandates are clear but they are not
being applied in communities in a coordinated way that
maximises the strength of each government department,
and NGOs, to reduce violence.33
The following graphic provides an overview of the findings
from the diagnostic review, and shows where there are
weaknesses and gaps and where things are working well.
The financial and opportunity costs
of not acting to reduce and prevent
violence are massive
In addition, a budget analysis by UNICEF concluded that
the budget for prevention and early intervention services
made up less than 1% of the combined national and
provincial Department of Social Development budgets.
Moreover, all provinces – with the exception of Gauteng –
showed a decrease in allocations to prevention services
over the medium-term expenditure framework for the
period of 2016/2017–2018/2019.32
Of course this is not all that is spent in South Africa on
violence prevention. A key finding from the diagnostic
review was that there was a strong reliance on donor
funding for violence-prevention programming, as well as
on non-governmental organisations to provide services
that prevent violence in communities. Unfortunately
the total value of donor investment in primary violence
prevention is not a matter of public record.
The problem with this approach is that it results in
services that are unsustainable and inconsistent over
POLICY BRIEF 106 | OCTOBER 2017 11
Figure 13: Overview of government readiness to respond to violence
against women and children34
In 2016 the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Violence Against Women and
Children (IMC on VAWC) accepted the findings of the diagnostic review (and
the resulting improvement plan). The DPME facilitated interdepartmental
discussions to develop an ‘improvement plan’ to address the shortcomings
identified by the diagnostic review. The improvement plan, which has the
Department of Social Development taking the lead, commits departments to:
• Revitalise, strengthen and relaunch the Programme of Action (this is the
responsibility of the technical task team of the IMC on VAWC).
• Comprehensively define response services and minimum core services
that the state must provide to survivors of violence, and cost these to
determine how much funding departments need to provide NGOs and
other service providers.
• Improve data on the prevalence of VAWC.
• Stop using crime statistics as an indication of prevalence and reported
cases as an indicator of police performance.
• Build the evidence base for what works to prevent violence through
programme evaluations.
• Improve accountability by establishing a body to provide oversight and
coordination to the sector.35
What we need to do to prevent and reduce violence
The World Health Organisation argues that if we want to reduce and prevent
violence we have to tackle the social, familial, community-level and individual
factors that increase the chances that someone will resort to violence – or
become a victim of violence. These factors have been well documented
through research nationally and internationally.36
Source: Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
Policy and
mandates
Partially ready
Current
programmes
Partially ready
Inter-sectoral
collaboration
Not ready
Material resources
(funding)
Not ready
Attitudes of
informants
Not ready
Data
and M&E
Not ready
Legislation
Ready
Will to address
the problem
Not ready
Human
resources
Partially ready
State readiness
to respond
to VAWC
EXCEPT FOR GAUTENG,
PREVENTION SERVICES
BUDGETS DROPPED IN
ALL PROVINCES
12 REDUCING VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM POLICING TO PREVENTION
A recent study commissioned by the Inter-Ministerial
Committee on Violence Against Women and Children
and undertaken by a consortium of researchers from the
University of Cape Town drew on a range of datasets
to show that conditions in the home significantly affect
the chances of a person becoming a victim of violence.
That research tells us that the chances of being a victim
of violence are increased for children who live in a poor,
one-parent family, where a family member is involved
in crime, where alcohol and drugs are used and where
family conflict occurs regularly.37
programmes available where they are needed and with
the resources available.
This would include conducting costing analyses of these
interventions, understanding how funding and resourcing
work, strengthening the relationships between the
government, NGOs and academics, and learning from
beneficiaries’ experiences and local knowledge. This is
so that collective knowledge is used to inform resource
allocation and the development of a sustainable system
for providing programmes where they are needed most.
The kinds of things that need to be done include following
the seven strategies identified by the World Health
Organisation’s INSPIRE package for ending violence
against children, and increasing safety:38
• Implementing and enforcing laws, such as those
limiting access by young people to firearms and other
weapons and those criminalising the violent punishment
of children by parents.
• Norms and values: changing beliefs and behaviours
around gender roles (for example the belief that men
are only financial providers in the home and don’t have
a role to play in caring for children).
• Safe environments: creating safe spaces by targeting
violent ‘hotspots’ and enhancing the built environment.
• Providing parent and caregiver support through
parenting training programmes.
• Income and economic strengthening: strengthening
the financial circumstances of poor families through
microfinance and grants combined with training around
gender norms.
• Response and support services: providing good
response and support services, such as treatment
programmes for juvenile offenders and counselling
services for victims of violence.
• Education and life skills: establishing safe schools and
improving children’s life and social skills.39
While there are many examples of how South Africa
is already doing much of this, the country is not yet
managing to do it consistently, sustainably or at the scale
that is needed. This is in part because the prevention
response has been concentrated on specialised services
(e.g. increasing the number of social workers). But a new
approach, one that is collectively defined by communities,
The key challenge is to develop a
society in which all persons feel they
have a stake
Save the Children South Africa’s costing study estimated
that South Africans who were physically abused as
children earned on average 11.7% less a month than
people who were not physically abused, and 9.2%
less if they were emotionally abused as children. This is
critical evidence to support the argument that in order to
improve human capital and earnings in South Africa, the
root causes of violence need to be addressed early. If we
were to reverse this, by reducing and preventing violence,
improved earnings would lead to increased revenue
generated through taxes and greater participation in the
economy – a situation in which the economy, the state
and citizens benefit.
It is clear that to reduce and prevent violence, we have to
address the social, economic and psychological well-
being of citizens. The upside to this approach is that
addressing the risk factors also means improving lives,
increasing educational outcomes, improving the chances
of employment and reducing the health and associated
costs of violence.
This is not as impossible as it may seem. In South
Africa there is a growing wealth of knowledge about
the kinds of interventions that can work to do this.
However the current approach to violence prevention
is not effective. The country should be investing more
wisely and undertaking the kind of research (including
implementation research) that can help determine how
to make evidence-based violence prevention
POLICY BRIEF 106 | OCTOBER 2017 13
government, NGOs and academics, is needed to deal
with the high levels of violence and trauma.40
South Africa’s approach needs to incorporate not only
preventing violence before it happens, but also acting
swiftly when violence does occur to prevent it from
happening again, and providing excellent services to
victims of violence to help them recover emotionally
and physically. This is essential to breaking the cycles of
violence, where trauma, if untreated, can reinforce cycles
of violence – both for the perpetrator and the victim.
Conclusion
Increases in spending on the criminal justice system
over the past 10 years have failed to deliver a decrease
in violent crime. This is not surprising since the criminal
justice system is largely reactive, and comes into effect
only after a crime has been committed. While good
professional policing may reduce certain types of
crime such as armed robberies, organised crime and
inter-group conflict (e.g. taxi or gang warfare),
preventing interpersonal violent crime needs a different
approach. It also requires greater investment in social
programmes that address the risk factors for violence.
Though there is a great deal of progress in the
development of laws, policies and programmes that
define, criminalise and address violence against women
and children, they have not resulted in sustainable,
effective programmes that address the risk factors
for violence.
To reduce and prevent violence in the long run, South
Africans must start grappling with the difficult questions
of how to make programmes that have been shown to
be effective in addressing the risk factors for violence
available where they are needed most.
But of course there is much more that must be done. As
Keith Soothill and Brian Francis concluded after reviewing
the theories about why there were reductions in crime
in the United States in the 1990s, and the evidence for
what caused particularly young men to engage in crime,
‘the pivotal issue is whether one can develop a society in
which all persons feel that they have a stake and, thus,
develop internal controls to resist crime. The development
of more prisons and more intrusive policing – measures of
external controls – is a sad reflection of a failure to
do this’.41
Civil society also now has an important opportunity to
help departments, where possible, as partners in the
implementation of the improvement plan, and by holding
them to account for implementing the plan. Members
of Parliament, non-governmental organisations and the
media need to be asking departments about what they
are doing to implement the improvement plan and ensure
that progress is made.
In the next two years before South Africa’s national
general election, political parties are going to develop
their election manifestos. Chances are that, as in the
past, those manifestos will play to what party leaders
believe voters want to hear: that they will be tough on
crime and violence and increase spending on policing.
But this will not yield the desired results – rather it will
further erode the chance that we (as a country) have
to make a significant difference in the lives of people
most affected by violence, and to improve the country’s
chances of climbing out of this harmful cycle. Political
parties need to take note of the evidence and change
their approach and their language from ‘fighting violence’
to ‘preventing violence’.
Political parties should change their
approach and language from ‘fighting
violence’ to ‘preventing violence’
In the meantime, it is essential for NGOs, government
departments and academics to continue to find ways
to communicate better, share information accessibly
and work together to ensure that violence-prevention
programmes are consistently and sustainably provided
in communities where they are needed most. They have
started doing this in the Dialogue Forum for Evidence-
Based Programmes to Prevent Violence against Women
and Children.
What is urgently needed is a coherent approach to
reducing and preventing crime and violence. To this end
the following is vital:
1. Understanding what works in South Africa to
reduce and prevent violence in a context of a
history of neglect, high levels of trauma and poverty.
Lawlessness and a lack of hope have eroded
14 REDUCING VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM POLICING TO PREVENTION
many communities and rebuilding requires multiple
simultaneous interventions. There must be effective
platforms to draw on the knowledge and experience
of communities, NGOs, academics and government
in order to ensure that interventions treating trauma,
reducing domestic violence, changing harmful gender
norms and ensuring children are safe at home, at
school and in their neighbourhoods are available where
and when they are needed.
2. A clear plan that takes into consideration the available
resources. Since 1994 the tendency has been to plan
for conditions where there are optimally functioning
systems and sufficient human resources to implement
costly and complex laws and policies. The reality
is different. A national strategy that recognises
resource constraints and works with what is available,
harnessing the resources that exist at community
level, is required. This means ensuring well-defined,
sustainable community-based interventions supported
by professionals to track families in trouble and
support parents in raising their children in ways that
encourage personal responsibility and non-violence,
change harmful gender norms and respond to the
needs of vulnerable families.
3. A strategy that recognises the power to change
circumstances latent in communities. Each
community has individuals who, despite their
environment, have developed knowledge and skills
to respond to their challenges. The strategy/ies
should help communities tap into their communities’
existing resources. NGOs and the government must
work with communities in ways that do not import
solutions but encourage communities to build on their
collective wisdom. This must be done in a manner
that is intuitive or resonates with their beliefs about
life, family and society. This way the interventions can
be successful and sustainable.
All this requires good cooperation and communication
between researchers, policymakers, academics and
community-based structures and organisations, and
a research agenda that builds on what is known and
provides answers on how to spend limited resources.
This is what the national Dialogue Forum for Evidence-
Based Programmes to Prevent Violence against Women
and Children seeks to achieve. It is also important to
remember that social change is a long-term project
that needs a government committed to investing in
interventions that take time to produce change.
POLICY BRIEF 106 | OCTOBER 2017 15
Notes
1 National Planning Commission, National Development Plan 2030: Our
future – make it work, The Presidency, Pretoria, 2012, 53.
2 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, The Global Study on Homicide
2013, Vienna, UNODC Research and Trend Analysis Branch, Division of
Policy Analysis and Public Affairs, 2014, 23. A Kriegler and M Shaw, A
Citizen’s Guide to Crime Trends in South Africa, Johannesburg: Jonathan
Ball, 2016, 85.
3 A Kriegler and M Shaw, A Citizen’s Guide to Crime Trends in South Africa,
Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2016.
4 A Faull and B Rose, Professionalism and the South African Police Service:
What is it and how can it help build safer communities? Pretoria, Institute
for Security Studies, ISS Paper 240, 2016.
5 X Fang et al, The Social and Economic Burden of Violence Against
Children in South Africa, Pretoria, Save the Children South Africa, 2016.
6 National Treasury, Estimates of National Expenditure Abridged version,
22 February 2017, National Treasury, Pretoria. Available at http://www.
treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/2016/ene/FullENE.pdf
(accessed 14 September 2017), xx.
7 Ibid.
8 National Treasury, Budget Review 2005, National Treasury, Pretoria
2005. Available at http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20
budget/2005/review/Chapter%201.pdf (accessed 26 August 2017), 22.
9 D Bruce, New Blood: Implications of en masse recruitment for the South
African Police Service, South African Crime Quarterly (43), 2013, 23.
10 Ibid.
11 Statistics South Africa, Victims of Crime Survey 2014/15, Pretoria,
Statistics South Africa, 2015, https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/
P0341/P03412014.pdf.
12 S Swingler, South Africa’s R40bn security industry under threat, Daily
Maverick, 14 May 2017, www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-14-
south-africas-r40bn-private-security-industry-under-threat/#.WUE-
bo4lEnU.
13 L Muntingh, J Redpath and K Petersen, An Assessment of the National
Prosecuting Authority – A Controversial Past and Recommendations for
the Future, Dullah Omar Institute, 2017, 3-44, 29.
14 Ibid.
15 J Redpath, Informal mediation and the fall in conviction rate,
PressReader, 2016, https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/business-
day/20161121/281513635745916.
16 J Redpath, Failing to prosecute? Assessing the state of the National
Prosecuting Authority in South Africa (ISS Monograph number 186),
Institute for Security Studies, 2012.
17 Ibid.
18 Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services,
Department of Correctional Services 2015/16 Budget and Strategic Plan:
Briefing by content advisor and researcher, 15 April 2015, https://pmg.
org.za/committee-meeting/20659/.
19 Department of Correctional Services, Department of Correctional
Services: Annual Report 2015/15 (Report no 18), 2016, 89.
20 Department of Correctional Services, Third Annual Report: Implementation
of the Child Justice Act, 75 of 2008, 2016, 5.
21 TR Clear, Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes
Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007.
22 Ibid.
23 K Soothill and B Francis, Considering the paradigms of crime reduction
in different contexts, National and international perspectives on crime and
policing, Johannesburg, Institute for Security Studies, 2010.
24 TR Clear, Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes
Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007.
25 Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Too costly to ignore –
the economic impact of gender-based violence in South Africa, Pretoria,
KPMG, 2014.
26 Ibid., 2.
27 See also C Gould and C Hsaio, Building an inclusive economy: why
preventing violence and supporting families is essential, A joint submission
to National Treasury by the Institute for Security Studies and Save the
Children South Africa, Pretoria, Institute for Security Studies and Save the
Children South Africa, 2017.
28 Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Too costly to ignore –
the economic impact of gender-based violence in South Africa, Pretoria,
KPMG, 2014.
29 J Heckman, The Case for Investing in Disadvantaged Young Children, in
Big Ideas for Children: Investing in Our Nation’s Future, 2008.
30 Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Report on the
Diagnostic Review of the State Response to Violence Against Women
and Children, Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and
Department of Social Development, 2016.
31 Ibid., 20.
32 International Budget Partnership, Budget: Children and South Africa’s
Social Development Budget, UNICEF, 2016.
33 Email communication with M Amisi, Department of Planning, Monitoring
and Evaluation, 25 August 2017.
34 M Amisi, Improving government response to violence against women
and children, Presentation at the Mandela Initiative action dialogue, Cape
Town, 22 May 2017, Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
35 Ibid., 25.
36 World Health Organisation, Violence prevention: the evidence, 2010.
Geneva, World Health Organisation, DJ Stein et al, Investigating the
psychosocial determinants of child health in Africa: The Drakenstein Child
Health Study, Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 2015. S Mathews et al,
Towards a More Comprehensive Understanding of the Direct and Indirect
Determinants of Violence against Women and Children in South Africa
with a View to Enhancing Violence Prevention, Cape Town, Safety and
Violence Initiative: University of Cape Town, 2016.
37 S Mathews et al, Towards a More Comprehensive Understanding of the
Direct and Indirect Determinants of Violence against Women and Children
in South Africa with a View to Enhancing Violence Prevention, Cape Town,
Safety and Violence Initiative: University of Cape Town, 2016.
38 See http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/inspire/en/
(last accessed 14 August 2017).
39 World Health Organisation, New strategies to end violence against
children, New York: World Health Organisation, 2016. Available at http://
www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/inspire/Note_for_the_
media2.pdf?ua=1 (accessed 14 August 2017).
40 Email correspondence with M Amisi, Department of Planning, Monitoring
and Evaluation, 25 August 2017.
41 K Soothill and B Francis, Considering the paradigms of crime reduction
in different contexts, National and international perspectives on crime and
policing, Johannesburg, Institute for Security Studies, 2010.
© 2017, Institute for Security Studies
Copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in the Institute for Security Studies and the authors, and no
part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission, in writing, of both the authors
and the publishers.
The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the ISS, its trustees, members of the Advisory
Council or donors. Authors contribute to ISS publications in their personal capacity.
Cover image: Don Pinnock
About this policy brief
This policy brief flows from and contributes to discussions held atthe Dialogue Forum for Evidence-
Based Programmes to Prevent Violence against Women and Children. The forum, established in 2015,
brings together academics, local and international non-governmental organisations that are evaluating
violence-prevention programmes, and government officials. The government departments involved
include the Departments of Basic Education; Women; Social Development; Health; Justice; Planning,
Monitoring and Evaluation; and the National Treasury. The forum seeks to build strong, healthy
inter-sectoral relationships, catalyse action and support processes that will lead to the sustainable
implementation of evidence-based programmes to prevent violence in South Africa. It is convened by
the Institute for Security Studies and guided by a driver group that includes representatives from Save
the Children South Africa, the Medical Research Council, the Department of Women and the United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
About the authors
Dr Chandré Gould is a Senior Research Fellow in the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at
the ISS.
Diketso Mufamadi is a Research Assistant in the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at
the ISS.
Dr Celia Hsiao is Research Manager at Save the Children South Africa.
Matodzi Amisi is a Director of Evaluation in the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
About the ISS
The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) partners to build knowledge and skills that secure Africa’s future.
The ISS is an African non-profit organisation with offices in South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Senegal.
Our work covers transnational crimes, migration, maritime security and development, peace operations,
crime prevention and criminal justice, peacebuilding, and the analysis of conflict and governance.
Acknowledgements
This policy brief is made possible with support from the World Childhood Foundation. The ISS is also
grateful for support from the members of the ISS Partnership Forum: the governments of Australia,
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the USA.
