From October 3-8, 2004, the International Center for the Prevention of Crime held its First International Crime Prevention Institute, bringing together a world-wide network of experts interested in advancing knowledge in the field (some proceedings will be available in a future IO edition).

As part of this event, following a panel session on police and prevention on Wednesday October 6, ICPC held a smaller group session on this theme with five conference participants, representing four countries-Chile, South Africa, Australia and Quebec.

ICPC mediated the hour long discussion, asking a few questions to the participants about the structure of policing, the current mechanisms (formal and informal) which help facilitate police partnerships in prevention, and the challenges of effectively involving the police in broader crime prevention partnerships.

Ben Groenewald, Assistant Commissioner, South African Police Service (SAPS), South Africa, provided a brief overview of the police service, describing the functions of SAPS in relation to investigation and crime prevention, and described some of the recent changes taking place in police training.

He also highlighted three publications commissioned by the SAPS Crime Prevention Division aimed at promoting community-based crime prevention in South Africa (1) Making South Africa Safe-A Manual for Community Based Crime Prevention, 2) Designing Safer Places, A Manual for Crime Prevention through Planning and Design, 3) Good Practice Guide, South Africa.

The latter project, was commissioned and managed by the Social Crime prevention Component of SAPS Division Crime Prevention, and developed by the CSIR and Institute for Security Studies (ISS).  For more information on how to obtain these guides, visit www.saps.gov.za, or www.crimeprevention.co.za



Peleka Zokwana, Senior Superintendent, SAPS, South Africa (pictured above on right), described a number of interdepartmental partnerships that SAPS's social crime prevention division is involved in such as Child Justice, Safer Schools and Street Children.  While calling attention to the number and quality of these informal mechanisms, she highlighted the need and importance of formal mechanisms in facilitating police partnerships in prevention.  "While SAPS plays a supportive role in all of these inter-departmental partnerships, we would really like to have formal agreements (eg. draft memos, guidelines) with other departments because I think that you need to have a binding document if you are going to work well together".

Ms Zokwana also discussed some of the challenges of police partnerships in prevention, such as respecting the pace at which other departments work (timelines, work goals, etc) and respecting that other departments may not prioritise this joint initiative within their overall department. 

Patricio Tudela, Advisor to the National Chief of Civil Police, Chile, cited the structure and organisational culture of the police as two of the main challenges of involving the police in community safety partnerships.  In particular, he noted that after 10 years of service in the Carabineros, officers have little contact with the communities they serve which makes it difficult to establish community police partnerships.

Similar to other police organisations, he noted the misperception among many young recruits about the nature of police work, and the reluctance of officers to recognize organisational culture as a barrier to working effectively with the community in tackling crime.

While recognising the important leadership role local authorities play in police partnerships in prevention, Mr. Tudela mentioned that Chilean local authorities need to be convinced and mobilised to assume this role.

Andrew Paterson, Australian Crime prevention Council, formerly Executive Director, Victims of Crime Service, South Australia commented on the challenges of involving the police in crime prevention partnerships.  "I think the issue of partnerships is critical and common across all police jurisdictions.  The police are not culturally used to having the kind of partnerships we would like them to have.  Often they like to control processes, so there are alot of territorial issues to deal with across departments (national to local)." 

Despite these challenges, Paterson noted a number of Australian local level initiatives involving the police in prevention, especially in the areas of school safety, youth justice, and victim support.

He concluded by expressing the need for a synthesis of intelligence-led policing and crime prevention, whereby the expertise of the police and crime prevention practitioners could be used in an integrated way in community safety partnerships.
 
Marc Alain, manager of the Centre d'intégration et de diffusion de la recherche en activités policières - CIDRAP, he National Police School of Quebec, briefly described the structure of policing in this province. Pointing out that there are three types of police forces in Quebec - national (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), provincial (Sûreté du Québec or SQ), and municipal, he  discusses various changes in the police in recent years. Overall, police organisations have been reduced from 137 in 1998 to 44 in 2003, their main characteristic being that now, there are six levels of services according to the size of the municipality in terms of population. Municipalities with a population of 50,000+ must have their own police force, whereas those under 50,000 may rely on the SQ.
Mr. Alain also mentioned problems caused by the recent reform in police management and the vagueness of the new law on police activities, which allowed the SQ to offer their (perhaps limited) expertise at an attractive rate to municipalities of 50,000 people and over. The SQ, chiefly a rural police force, thought that hiring some 1,000 municipal police officers from municipalities which abolished their own force would perhaps bring a new impetus for change. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

As for training, Mr. Alain stated that many changes have occurred since the creation in 2000 of  l'École nationale de police du Québec (ENPQ), which is in charge of police training. The latest change concerns admissions and training, where standards have been raised. To be a detective for instance, a permit is now required along with a university diploma certifying that three core courses have been successfully completed – ethics, criminal law and criminological analysis. This new training requirement has existed for barely a year.

Finally, he noted that if training issues are unanimously accepted in principle, financial issues present challenges. Indeed, police unions require that officers be paid for the duration of their training. However, granting that a one-hour university course theoretically involves three hours of personal work, it becomes apparent that this request carries with it some level of compensation to be paid to the officers for their time.