National development plan: analysis of South African police service vision for 2030 to build safer communities.
Authors:   ,   ,, Zulu Bongiwe Matilda 
Published: February 2024

Chapter 12 of the National Development Plan (NDP) Vision 2030 aims to create an environment in South Africa (SA) where people living in the country will feel safe at home, on the street, at school, at work and in public spaces, and have no fear of crime. The NDP emphasises the safety and security of women and children. It further suggests an integrated approach to resolving the root causes of crime that involves an active citizenry and interrelated responsibilities and coordinated service delivery by both the state and non-state actors. This study sought to analyse how the South African Police Service (SAPS) was implementing the NDP Vision 2030 in building safer communities. It focused on the SAPS implementation of Chapter 12 of the NDP Vision 2030. In addition, it examined the attitudes and perceptions of actors and implementers regarding the NDP implementation within the SAPS. It analysed the translation of the NDP chapter 12’s five priority areas, and the SAPS understanding, alignment and internalisation of the NDP vision of building safer communities. It further examined the challenges the SAPS experienced and the progress it made in implementing the five priority areas in building safer communities. This study covered public policy implementation, theory of change and internalisation as conceptual frameworks. The study adopted mixed methodology as both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed. Literature and document analysis and reviews were conducted. Questionnaires were distributed to collect data from Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape. The qualitative methodology consisted of a total of 306 community participants and 397 police participants who responded to a single public opinion question (Appendix 1) and a total of 13 individual experts who responded to 12 questions during semi-structured interviews (Appendix 2). A total of 807 (42,3%) police officers and 1 101 (57,7%) community members responded on the quantitative questionnaire (Appendix 3). The raw data gathered from the quantitative approach were captured on the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) system and recorded. The data gathered from qualitative approach were grouped, categorised and themed. Eventually, they were analysed and interpreted. The findings of the study confirmed that the NDP was not without deep-rooted crises and factors influencing policy implementation in SA. These crises included failure to translate policies into long-term plans and lack of planning systems and competencies to implement policies. There were many legislative, policy and strategic response trajectories towards building safer communities in place, but there was lack of institutionalisation, monitoring and evaluation of their impact on community safety. A steady decline in communities feel safe nullified the NDP vision of the people living in SA feeling safe and having no fear of crime. Adverse basic living, social, health and economic conditions for the people of SA and ineffective execution of programmes to improve these conditions impacted negatively on community safety. The study validated the prevalence of juvenile delinquency and lack of trust and confidence between the police and communities. Based on theoretical framework of this study, a conclusion on the tripartite relationship between three interdependent critical variables in achieving safer communities was drawn. The interdependence of these variables on the policy implementation theory framework was founded on NDP implementation and theory of change. The researcher’s proposed Safer Community Model and Proactive and Integrated Model for Crime and Violence Prevention and the internalisation theory were grounded on the commitment of actors and implementers in shaping the direction of safer communities.