Chantelle Benjamin
THE government's revamp of the criminal justice system, launched recently amid much fanfare, came under criticism yesterday at the opening of a civil society conference on crime, where it was felt that increasing the size of the system would lead to its collapse.
Delegates at the four-day Action for a Safe SA Convention cheered Barbara Holtmann, crime prevention research leader at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), when she said growing the justice system would not address the high crime rate; it would simply implode.
She criticised lack of emphasis in the government's plan on crime prevention.
The delegates, from bodies such as the Institute for Security Studies, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the CSIR, the University of Cape Town's Centre for Criminology as well as groups against small arms and violence against women and children, will break up into eight groups over the next two days to devise a practical implementation plan to be presented on Thursday.
Holtmann said: "Private security is twice the size of the present police force, and costs R46bn a year, which is more than we make on tourism, but has it reduced crime?
"No. In fact, Sandton with a huge private security force is worse off than ever.
"It has been shown that private security just displaces crime in one place to another place, or converts it into another type of crime, but it does not reduce crime," she said.
"In places such as Sandton, instead of opportunistic crime the criminals have become more organised, striking in groups and coming armed, expecting to receive opposition."
Holtmann based her assessment on the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation study of the nature of crime in SA, which was submitted to the government's justice, crime-prevention and security cluster.
A vice-president of the International Centre for Prevention of Crime with headquarters in Canada, Holtmann told delegates that she believed SA had enough policemen but just "too many criminals".
"The more we spend on making the criminal justice system bigger, the less we will have to spend on other things," she said.
"The country will have nearly 200000 policemen by 2010, but only 15000 social workers to deal with the social problems that contribute to crime.
"We need to look not only at the inefficiencies of the criminal justice system, but we need to understand that we have to reduce the demand on that system if the plan is going to work.
"Do we need to spend money on enforcement — or do we need to put some money into prevention?" she asked.
Holtmann said it was a well-known fact that the person most likely to commit a crime was a former convict, and yet little was being done to reach people before they committed crimes, or to get to new offenders before they became hardened criminals.
"Let's solve that, and then turn our attention to the criminal justice system," she said. On the issue of imprisonment, Holtmann asked if it was always the answer. "A few years ago there were 400 people serving life sentences, and now there are 8000, and has it made us any safer?"
Jody Kollapen, chairman of the South African Human Rights Commission, referred in his address to the government plan, which he said "was contentious for some".
"Clearly we need to review the criminal justice system, but it's more important that we look at the present dysfunctionality of society and how gang leaders can become heroes in some communities."
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CSVR is a multi-disciplinary institute that seeks to understand and prevent violence, heal its effects and build sustainable peace at the community, national and regional levels.
