Crime in South Africa

[Trevor]

This is a response I made to an article by Ivo Vegter on the M&G
Thought Leader blog, at http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/thespike/2008/03/07/how-to-mop-up-criminals-quickly/

As a recent armed robbery and torture victim, and consequently a
client of the SAPS, I can speak with some experience of the state of
play in the crime arena in SA.
Like virtually every other government department, the SAPS appears to
be in a state of chaos. Phone calls go unanswered, answers are
meaningless or unintelligible, messages cannot be left or go
unanswered. Although arrest rates are occasionally impressive (its
relatively easy to throw a few likely suspects in the back of a
truck), conviction rates are microscopic and laughable. It is patently
obvious that the current management and staff of the SAPS simply
cannot cut the mustard in the face of the deadly crime wave in SA.
To a large extent the security business has already been privatised,
but without any legislative authority to apprehend and prosecute
criminals. Here are a few suggestions to dramatically improve policing
and security in SA, and to address some of the privatisation concerns
raised by others above.

1. Take the entire police and security annual budget, divide it by the
number of adults in SA (about 40 million I guess), and distribute an
equal number of security vouchers to each adult South African, to use
as they see fit.
2. Retain the existing SAPS structure as is, without change. However,
set up legislation to allow competing security agencies with the same
rights and responsibilities to be established in competition with
SAPS.
3. Open the security market to fair competition. Adult Citizens may
now decide where to spend their security vouchers, on the local SAPS
if they've been doing a good job, or on a competitor if they haven't.
These vouchers would be redeemed by the central government for cash to
registered security agencies, including the SAPS.
4. All the usual market rules will come into force, as explained by
Ivo so elegantly above. If you can't attract clients because you can't
do the job, you quickly go out of business. If you behave unethically,
your competitors will be quick to point it out, and will have the
authority to prosecute you too. If your staff take bribes, their own
management will quickly discipline them, since those profits belong to
the directors and owners (who took the risk of starting this
business).
5. A market in security vouchers will quickly emerge. If you have a
security crisis, you may borrow additional vouchers from friends, buy
them on the internet, or from a security voucher broker. If you have a
long safe run, you will save up your vouchers, leave them to your
children, sell them to a broker, whatever.

In this fashion, SA adults will individually decide where and how
their security rands will be spent, who provides the best services,
and who should go to the wall. If the SAPS are actually providing a
great but unrewarded service, then nothing will change as we all spend
our vouchers on them, but I wouldn't count on it.

However, the reality is that every centralised authoritarian regime
knows that direct control of the security forces is essential to THEIR
security. This is something they will never give up without a huge
struggle, using those same security services to suppress all other
points of view. So, interesting as this discussion may be, it is
ultimately pointless.